David Brion Davis

David Brion Davis (February 16, 1927 – April 14, 2019) was the Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and the founding director of the Gilder Lehrman Center. Davis is the author of The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, and The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation. In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal, for “reshaping our understanding of history.” His 2006 book, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World, received the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize from the Phi Beta Kappa Society. His other awards include the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, the American Historical Associations’ Albert J. Beveridge Award, the National Book Award, and the 2004 Bruce Catton Prize of the Society of American Historians for lifetime achievement. Davis was also the recipient of the 2004 Kidger Award from the New England History Teachers Association given to honor his devotion to teaching. Davis received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1956. He served as President of the Organization of American Historians for the 1988-1989 term.