On Oct. 4, David McCullough, prizewinning author and historian and resident of West Tisbury, will receive the Saint-Gaudens Medal and the Honorary Park Ranger Award. The two awards celebrate Mr. McCullough’s success in engaging a broad audience with stories of prominent Americans who had connections to National Park Service properties, including the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, N.H., the former home and studios of Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
The Saint-Gaudens Medal is awarded to people who, by their talents and vision, have made a significant contribution to the arts in America in the high tradition of the great American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907). The Honorary Park Ranger award is the highest civilian honor awarded by the National Park Service, and is given to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the National Park Service as a whole.
Mr. McCullough has been called a “citizen chronicler” and a “master of the art of narrative history.” His 11 scrupulously researched books have enlivened key luminaries and events of American history, including John Adams, Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt, the Wright Brothers, and the Johnstown Flood. “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris,” which includes a lengthy section on Saint-Gaudens, was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. Mr. McCullough has twice been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, twice won the National Book Award, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. He is a frequent lecturer, a host of television productions, and a narrator of many documentaries, including Ken Burns’ “The Civil War.”
The awards will be presented between 5 and 6 pm, Oct. 4, behind Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Shaw Memorial, on Boston Common (off Beacon Street, near Park Street) in Boston.
