Historian, biographer, university professor, teacher of historians, and bluewater sailor, Samuel Eliot Morison has added to the sum total of learning in many fields and has contributed to the pleasure of thousands of readers who have found in him a scholar of profound erudition as well as an author possessed of literary vigor and charm. Our awareness and knowledge of colonial America owe much to his research and interpretation. Among his many works in this area, the Maritime History of Massachusetts and Builders of the Bay Colony are characteristic of his interests in seafaring and in significant personalities. His Tercentennial History of Harvard University set a standard for academic history rarely achieved before or since. His Admiral of the Ocean Sea, a biography of Columbus, won for the author the first of two Pulitzer prizes, the second being for the biography of another heroic mariner, John Paul Jones. Morison’s interest in the sea and in naval affairs, from the time of Columbus to his own day, made him the natural choice to head the Historical Section of the United States Navy in World War II. The fifteen-volume History of U. S. Naval Operations in World War II resulted, followed by The Two Ocean War. Morison’s most recent contribution to naval history is a biography of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry entitled ‘Old Bruin’. The recipient of many earlier honors, honorary degrees, medals, and citations, Morison received in 1963 the Balzan Foundation Award for History. Not content to con- fine his research to dusty archives and libraries, Morison sailed his own craft in the track of Columbus and later photographed from the air the islands and inlets of the Caribbean region that Columbus discovered. Beginning as a lieutenant-commander, Morison retired as a rear admiral in the United States Naval Reserve. Like the great discoverer about whom he has written, he too deserves to be remembered as an “Admiral of the Ocean Sea.”
For his manifold achievements, for his many contributions to history, and for his eminence as a man of letters, the Cosmos Club of Washington is honored to name him the recipient of the Fifth Cosmos Club Award.
