Pulitzer Prize-Winning History Author to Inspire Weber State Graduates
OGDEN, Utah – Pulitzer Prize-winning author and professor emeritus Daniel Walker Howe will share his wisdom with the fall 2014 graduating class during Weber State University’s 144th commencement ceremony.
Howe received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for history with his book What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848. The book also received the annual American History Prize of the New-York Historical Society and the annual Prize of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.
A Rhodes Professor of American History emeritus at Oxford University and professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, Howe’s academic career extends back to the 1960s, when he began teaching at Yale. He then taught for nearly two decades at UCLA, where he served as chair of the history department from1983-87. He was the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting Professor of American History at Oxford University from 1989-90. In 1992, he took early retirement at UCLA to accept an appointment as Rhodes Professor of American History at Oxford for the next 10 years.
While at Oxford, Howe helped found that university’s Rothermere American Institute. In 2001, he returned to Yale as a visiting professor, and in 2002, he retired from Oxford. In spring semester of 2011, he was the Jones Visiting Professor of History at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He continues to research and write, both at UCLA and the Huntington Library.
Born in Ogden, Utah, Howe grew up in Denver. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Master of Arts from Oxford. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Harvard and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.
Besides What Hath God Wrought, Howe has written The Unitarian Conscience: Harvard Moral Philosophy, 1805-1861, The Political Culture of the American Whigs, Victorian America and Making the American Self.
Howe’s writings have appeared in the New York Review of Books, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review and Smithsonian Magazine. He has written approximately 50 articles for professional journals and other scholarly publications, and more than 90 book reviews. He regularly lectures across the country to both academic and general audiences.
Howe was historical advisor to the 12-hour History Channel series America: the Story of Us, which covered the entire history of the United States. He consulted for and was interviewed on the PBS documentary Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil, and the Presidency, which was planned and filmed at President Andrew Jackson’s home in Nashville, Tennessee. He has been interviewed on many other television and radio programs, both American and British, on historical and contemporary topics including film reviews, educational issues, communications revolutions, character development and analogies between the U.S. and developing countries.
He has been married for 53 years to retired special education teacher Sandra Howe. They have a daughter, two sons and six grandchildren. The Howes live in Sherman Oaks, California and visit Oxford every summer for a month or more.
WSU’s 144th commencement will begin at the Dee Events Center on Dec. 12 at 1 p.m.
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- Shane Farver, executive communication coordinator
801-626-7439 · shanefarver@weber.edu - Contact:
- Bev Rudd, university advancement event coordinator
801-626-6468 • beverlyrudd@weber.edu