2019 Literature Award winner - Dr. John H. Morrow, Jr.

Dr. John H. Morrow, Jr., Franklin Professor of History at the University of Georgia, earned his BA with Honors in History from Swarthmore College (1966) and his Ph.D. in Modern European History from the University of Pennsylvania (1971). In 1971 Professor Morrow became the first African American faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he taught for seventeen years. During that time he was selected a National Alumni Association Outstanding Teacher and University of Tennessee Macebearer, the highest honor that a faculty member can receive. Morrow served as Head of the UTK History Department from 1983 to his departure from the University in 1988.

Morrow was invited to join the faculty of the University of Georgia in 1988 as Franklin Professor, and in 1991 was elected History Department Chairman, a position to which the faculty elected him again in 2010. He served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1993 to 1995 before returning to full time teaching and research. Twice selected an Honors Professor for superior teaching, he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the history of Modern Europe and of warfare and society. He taught German history as a visiting professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point spring semester 2005, for which the Department of the Army awarded him its Outstanding Civilian Service Medal.

In 1988-89 Morrow was the Charles A. Lindbergh Visiting Professor at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM), where he consulted on the design of the present gallery on World War I aviation. Morrow has been an invited lecturer at such institutions as the National War College, the Air War College, and the U.S. Military Academy, and he has chaired the History Advisory Committee to the Secretary of the Air Force, the Research Advisory Committee of the National Museum of American History (NMAH), and the Search Committee for the Director of the NMAH.

He served on the History Advisory Committee of the Department of the Army and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission’s Legacy Committee. For the past four years he has served as an academic advisor to the National World War I Centennial Commission and as a member of the Georgia state Commission. For the last decade he has served as a member of the Presidential Counselors of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, LA, where he co-chaired the planning committee for the Museum’s current traveling exhibit on the African American experience in World War II. He is presently a consultant on a forthcoming exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC.

Author or co-author of 8 publications, Morrow is an accomplished military historian and respected professor. His work includes The Great War: An Imperial History, The Great War in the Air, and German Airpower in World War I, among others. He has gained recognition for his ability to demonstrate how the past and the present come together to impact the future and is a deserving recipient of this year’s award.