Benjamin Franklin Medal (American Philosophical Society)
The Benjamin Franklin Medal is an award of the American Philosophical Society that has not been awarded for a long time in its more than 100-year history and has been rededicated several times.
The medal
The approximately 10 cm medal was designed by Louis St. Gaudens (1854–1913) and Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907). On the front the lettering "Benjamin Franklin", the portrait of Franklin and again in capital letters the words "Printer, Philosopher, Scientist, Statesman, Diplomatist" (printer, philosopher, scientist, statesman, diplomat) can be seen in capital letters . The reverse shows an allegorical representation of history, which is recorded in the presence of literature, science and philosophy.
history
1906 decided the United States Congress on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Benjamin Franklin (next to John Bartram one of the founders of the American Philosophical Society, then known as Philosophical Society ), the Secretary of State to allow a medal to Franklin Memorial to be embossed. The first medal - in gold - went to the French Republic on the instructions of the then US President , Theodore Roosevelt . The US Secretary of State Elihu Root presented it to the French ambassador, Jean Jules Jusserand, during a ceremony marking Franklin's 200th birthday .
Another 150 medals were minted in bronze . The US President and the American Philosophical Society should be able to award these medals themselves. While it is documented that Marie Curie received a medal as a "keepsake" in 1921 when she gave a brief report on her piezoelectric measurement of radioactivity to the American Philosophical Society on the occasion of the award of the John Scott Medal by the City of Philadelphia , the next official award took place the medal only in 1937, to William Lyon Phelps on the occasion of his lecture on "Truth and Poetry". Until 1949, awards were made to various scientists every or every other year at festive lectures.
Another thirty year hiatus followed before the medal was presented three times to deserving officials of the American Philosophical Society between 1979 and 1983. Between 1985 and 1991, the Benjamin Franklin Medal was the American Philosophical Society's highest award in the field of humanities and sciences .
Since 1987 the American Philosophical Society has awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Public Service for exceptional contributions to the common good ("general welfare"). Since the 1993 Congress of the American Philosophical Society approved the award of the Thomas Jefferson Medal for special contributions in the fields of art and the humanities ("arts, humanities, and social sciences"), the Benjamin Franklin Medal has only been awarded in the field of ( Natural) sciences awarded ("sciences").
Award winners
Benjamin Franklin Medal (1906-1983)
- 1906 French Republic
- 1937 William Lyon Phelps
- 1939 Edvard Beneš
- 1940 Edward S. Corwin
- 1941 Hugh S. Taylor
- 1943 James B. Conant
- 1945 Arthur H. Compton
- 1947 Douglas S. Freeman
- 1949 William E. Lingelbach
- 1979 George W. Corner
- 1982 Julia A. Noonan
- 1983 Whitfield J. Bell
Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distintinguished Achievement in the Humanities or Sciences (1985–1991)
- 1985 Charles Brenton Huggins
- 1986 Helen Brooke Taussig
- 1987 Samuel Noah Kramer , Otto Neugebauer
- 1988 Jonathan E. Rhoads , Sune Bergström
- 1989 John Archibald Wheeler
- 1990 James Bennett Pritchard , Britton Chance , Crawford H. Greenewalt
- 1991 Lyman Spitzer
Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Public Service (since 1987)
- 1987 Margaret Thatcher
- 1988 Thomas J. Watson, Jr. , Warren Earl Burger
- 1989 Paul Mellon
- 1992 Thurgood Marshall
- 1993 Walter H. Annenberg
- 1994 Linus Pauling
- 1995 William T. Golden
- 1996 Edmund N. Carpenter II
- 1997 William Scranton
- 1998 Alan Greenspan
- 1999 George J. Mitchell
- 2000 Nelson Mandela
- 2002 Mary Robinson
- 2003 Sandra Day O'Connor
- 2004 James D. Wolfensohn (awarded 2006)
- 2005 Sam Nunn
- 2006 John Hope Franklin
- 2011 Arlin M. Adams
- 2018 Bryan Stevenson
Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences (since 1993)
- 1993 Ruth Patrick , Barbara McClintock , CN Yang , Michael Atiyah , Emily Hartshorne Mudd
- 1995 Ernst Mayr
- 1996 Victor A. McKusick
- 1997 Herman H. Goldstine
- 1998 Edward O. Wilson
- 1999 Frederick C. Robbins , Phillip Allen Sharp
- 2000 William O. Baker
- 2001 Francis HC Crick and James D. Watson , Alexander G. Bearn
- 2002 Joshua Lederberg
- 2003 Janet Rowley
- 2004 Steven Weinberg
- 2005 Hans A. Bethe
- 2006 Eric R. Kandel
- 2016 Thomas E. Starzl
- 2018 Mary-Claire King
Web links
- Benjamin Franklin Medal from the American Philosophical Society (amphilsoc.org)
Individual evidence
- ^ Benjamin Franklin Bicentennial Medal at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (mfa.org); Retrieved November 8, 2014.
- ↑ Minutes . In: American Philosophical Society (Ed.): Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society . tape 60 , no. 4 , 1921, pp. xxii , JSTOR : 984523 .