TIMELESS ACHIEVEMENTS
Celebrate These 10 Extraordinary American Nobel Laureates!
Image: Anastacia Dvi
For many disciplines, being awarded a Nobel Prize is akin to reaching the summit of Mount Everest: it is the highest achievement that many scientists, writers, and world leaders can aspire to. In that regard, we Americans can take pride in knowing that our country has been awarded an extraordinary 400 Nobel Prizes, making us the nation with the most laureates in the world. We have selected ten of these extraordinary Americans in history, in an effort to celebrate and remember their remarkable achievements.
1
Barack Obama
Image: History in HD
We’ll begin with our most recent Laureate President. You’ll quickly notice that many U.S. Presidents have made it to this list, which seems only fitting considering their paramount efforts in maintaining world peace.
In this regard, President Obama is no exception, and in 2009 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
2
Al Gore
Image: Markus Spiske
The only American Vice President on this list, Al Gore, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his "efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change." Gore has been a long-time advocate for fighting climate change, and his endeavors were featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth .
Nowadays, Al Gore continues to educate the world about environmentalism and the perils of climate change. In 2021, he addressed the United Nations during their Climate Change Conference.
3
Martin Luther King Jr.
Image: Unseen Histories
No other figure represents the fight for Civil Rights in America as Martin Luther King Jr. does. In 1964, Reverend King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population."
King, who was 35 years old at the time, became the youngest Peace Prize recipient in history. This title is now held by Malala Yousafzai, who was awarded the Prize at 17 years of age, in 2014.
4
Richard P. Feynman
Image: Zoltan Tasi
From his bongo playing to his iconic studying technique, American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman has become a pop culture icon. In 1965, Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics alongside Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics."
While Feynman was by no means the first (nor will be the last) American Nobel-winning physicist, his recognition is still remembered fondly by the scientific community. With the money from the award, Feynman and his wife purchased a beach house in Baja California, Mexico.
5
Bob Dylan
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Bob Dylan is known as "The Voice of a Generation" and with good reason: his songs of protest and insightful lyrics have inspired generations of Americans for almost 70 years. Dylan is truly a renaissance man, being an accomplished musician, painter, and, perhaps more importantly for this list, writer.
In 2016, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." Fellow American musician (and die-hard Bob Dylan fan) Patti Smith performed a heartfelt rendition of his classic song "A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall" during his Nobel ceremony.
6
Jimmy Carter
Image: Library of Congress
At almost 100 years of age, Jimmy Carter’s life has been filled with outstanding achievements and awards. In that sense, it is rather remarkable that our 39th President’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded almost 20 years after he left the White House.
In 2002, President Carter received the Peace Prize for "his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts." His award mostly acknowledged his work with the Carter Center and their exceptional work in defending and promoting human rights around the world.
7
Ernest Hemingway
Image: Annie Lang
"Beige" prose master and iconic American author Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize in 1954 for his "mastery of the art of narrative". The Nobel Foundation specially cited Hemingway’s then most recent novel, The Old Man and the Sea , as a contributing factor in their decision.
At the time of his award, Hemingway was recuperating from an airplane accident and didn’t travel to Stockholm to receive the award. He did, however, send a speech to be read at the ceremony, in which he stated that "Writing, at its best, is a lonely life."
8
John Forbes Nash
Image: Roman Mager
American mathematician John Forbes Nash was brought into the spotlight thanks to the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind , in which Nash was portrayed by Russell Crowe. Thanks to this movie, the whole world was able to learn about Nash’s troubled but extraordinary life and the amazing theories that earned him a Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994.
Nash is mostly remembered for his groundbreaking contributions to the mathematical field known as "game theory." He was awarded the prize alongside John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten "for their pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games."
9
Toni Morrison
Image: Isaac N.
American novelist Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 when she was 62 years of age. A few years earlier, Morrison received the Pulitzer Prize for her groundbreaking 1988 novel Beloved , which was instrumental in her Nobel nomination.
The Nobel Foundation acknowledged Morrison’s extraordinary talent, recognizing her as a writer "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality."
10
Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
Image: Library of Congress
We’ll end this article with the very first American to win a Nobel Prize. Our 26th President received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906, in recognition of his tremendous and successful efforts in ending the Russo-Japanese War.
Roosevelt was not only the first American but also the very first statesman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. While at the time this award was deemed controversial, ultimately the Nobel Foundation decided to acknowledge Roosevelt’s "role in bringing to an end the bloody war recently waged between two of the world's great powers, Japan and Russia."
