9/28/96
ATHENS, Ohio -- Ohio University Professor of History Alonzo Hamby received the Distinguished Professor Award Saturday (Sept. 28) during the annual Honors Convocation in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. He is the 34th recipient of the award.
The Distinguished Professor Award recognizes scholarly accomplishment, professional reputation and contribution to the university. A lifetime designation, it provides one quarter of professional leave and the privilege of naming one student annually to receive a Distinguished Professor Scholarship.
Hamby, a specialist in 20th century American political history, is the author and editor of several books focusing on the American presidency from Franklin D. Roosevelt onward, with particular attention to the Truman years from 1945 to 1953.
His most recent book, Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman, has earned critical acclaim from historians and critics at the nation's most prestigious newspapers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post Book World. The book was published last October.
Hamby has earned praise for his scholarship since the publication of his first book in 1973. That volume, Beyond the New Deal: Harry S. Truman and American Liberalism, earned the David Lloyd Prize of the Harry S. Truman Institute, the Ohio Academy of History Book Award, and the First Book Award from the national history honorary Phi Alpha Theta. He followed in 1976 with The Imperial Years: The United States Since 1939, a book aimed at the general reader that also received reviews in both of his discipline's principal journals, and Liberalism and Its Challengers: F.D.R. to Reagan in 1985, which was revised to add reference to George Bush's presidency in 1992.
Hamby joined the Ohio University faculty in 1965, and became professor in 1975. He chaired the department from 1980-83, and now is a member of the Contemporary History Institute faculty.
"I am very happy to accept an appointment that honors research achievement because it is made in the understanding that contributing to one's field is half of the responsibility of a university professor, that far from detracting from one's teaching, it enhances what we do in the classroom," Hamby said.
"I am not certain whether one really can thank an institution, but I want to salute Ohio University. Ohio University is a quality school in every sense of the word. I am proud of the upward trajectory we are on and proud of this great university," he said.
Among Hamby's many honors are a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.; a Harry S. Truman Library Institute Senior Fellowship; a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship; and the most recent, two awards for Man of the People: a Harry S. Truman Book Award and a Herbert Hoover Book Award, a recognition by the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association of the best scholarly book published in 1995 on any aspect of American history during Hoover's public life from 1914 to 1964.
History Professor and Department Chair Bruce Steiner, who nominated Hamby for the award, detailed how Hamby has appealed to scholars and the reading public alike with his history books, articles and presentations.
In describing Man of the People, Steiner wrote, "Conceived as early as the late 1970s, this biography deals with Hamby's fellow, equally feisty Missourian in a way that no other writer, David McCullough included, has been equipped and/or willing to do, since it brings the skills and knowledge of a trained scholar drenched in recent political history to bear on the full range of sources and on (Truman's) entire career."
Steiner also praised Hamby's teaching.
"For sophomores in U.S. surveys, for mixed classes of upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, and for the graduate seminar room, he has fashioned classes featuring cutting-edge scholarship and careful organization, splendid prose and probing, nurturing ways," Steiner wrote.
Hamby's nomination was supported by letters from 10 top history scholars, including noted historian Arthur Schlesinger, who wrote, "Lon Hamby's contributions to 20th century American political history have won justified praise and wide readership. Man of the People, his recent biography of Harry Truman, is a superb book, deeply researched, well written, incisive in analysis and sober and dispassionate in judgment. . . . I have no doubt that Professor Hamby's designation as a Distinguished Professor will be applauded throughout the historical community."
Selection for the award is made by a committee of faculty members who previously have received the honor, which was established in 1959 as part of the Baker Fund Endowment created by alumnus Edwin L. Kennedy.
Editor's note: Hamby will be available after the convocation at Memorial Auditorium and during a Baker Center reception following the event. He will leave town later Saturday and will return Oct. 7.