About Quizzes

American Nobel Prize Winners

The Nobel Prize is an international award given yearly for oustanding achievements in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, economic science, and for peace. Since its inception in 1901 by Alfred Nobel, many have received the prestigious award. Listed below are the Americans who have received the prize amount, a gold medal and a diploma (with any non-American co-recipients listed in parentheses, as applicable).


Recipient Name

Nobel Prize Category

Year Awarded

Summary

Theodore Roosevelt>

Peace>

1906>

President of United States; collaborator of various peace treaties">

1910s

Alexis Carrel

Medicine

1912

"In recognition of his work on vascular suture and the transplantation of blood vessels and organs"

Elihu Root

Peace

1912

Former Secretary of State; "Originator of various treaties of arbitration"

Theodore W. Richards

Chemistry

1914

"In recognition of his accurate determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of chemical elements"

Woodrow Wilson

Peace

1919

President of United States of America; Founder of the League of Nations

1920s

Albert Einstein

Physics

1921

"For his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"

Robert A. Millikan

Physics

1921

"For his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect"

Charles G. Dawes

Peace

1925

Vice-President of United States of America; Chairman of Allied Reparation Commission (Originator of "Dawes Plan")

Arthur H. Compton

Peace

1925

"For his discovery of the effect named after him"

Frank B. Kellogg

Peace

1929

Former Secretary of State; Part originator of the Kellogg-Briand Pact

1930s

Sinclair Lewis

Literature

1930

"For his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters"

Jane Addams

Peace

1931

Sociologist; International President for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

Nicholas Murray Butler

Peace

1931

President, Columbia University; Promoter of the Kellogg-Briand Pact

Irving Langmuir

Chemistry

1932

"For his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry"

Thomas H. Morgan

Medicine

1933

"For his discoveries concerning the role played by the chromosome in heredity"

Harold C. Urey

Chemistry

1934

"For his discovery of heavy hydrogen"

George R. Minot, William P. Murphy, George H. Whipple>

William P. Murphy>

George H. Whipple

Medicine

1934

"For their discoveries concerning liver therapy in cases of anaemia"

Eugene O'Neill

Literature

1936

"For the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept of tragedy"

Carl D. Anderson

Physics

1936

"For his discovery of the positron"

Clinton Davisson

(George Paget Thomson)

Physics

1937

"For their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals"

Pearl Buck

Literature

1938

"For her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces"

1940s

Edward A. Doisy

Medicine

1943

"For his discovery of the chemical nature of vitamin K"

Joseph Erlanger

Herbert S. Gasser

Medicine

1944

"For their discoveries relating to the highly differentiated functions of single nerve fibres"

Cordell Hull

Peace

1945

Former Secretary of State; significant participant in the establishment of the United Nations

John H. Northrop

Wendell M. Stanley

Chemistry

1946

"For their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form"

James B. Sumner

Chemistry

1946

"For his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized"

Hermann J. Muller

Medicine

1946

"For the discovery of the production of mutations by means of X-ray irradiation"

Emily Greene Balch

Peace

1946

Former Professor of History and Sociology; Honorary International President, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

John R. Mott

Peace

1946

Chairman, International Missionary Council; President, World Alliance of Young Men's Christian Associations

Percy W. Bridgman

Peace

1946

Former Professor of History and Sociology; Honorary International President, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

Carl Cori

Gerty Theresa Cori, née Radnitz

Medicine

1947

"For their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen"

American Friends Service Committe (Quakers)

(Friends Service Committee (Quakers))

Peace

1947

For their relief and reconstruction work in many European countries, as well as in India, China, and Japan

William F. Giaugue

Chemistry

1949

"For his contributions in the field of chemical thermodynamics, particularly concerning the behaviour of substances at extremely low temperatures"

William Faulkner

Literature

1949

"For his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel"

1950s

Philip S. Hench

Edward C. Kendall

(Tadeus Reichstein)

Medicine

1950

"For their discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects"

Ralph Bunche

Peace

1950

"Professor, Harvard University Cambridge, MA; Director, division of Trusteeship, U.N.; Acting Mediator in Palestine, 1948"

Edwin M. McMillan

Glenn T. Seaborg

Chemistry

1951

"For their discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements"

E.M. Purcell

Felix Bloch

Physics

1952

"For their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith"

Fritz Lipmann

Medicine

1953

"For his discovery of co-enzyme A and its importance for intermediary metabolism"

George C. Marshall

Peace

1953

General President American Red Cross; former Secretary of State and of Defense; U.N. Delegate ; Originator of the "Marshall Plan"

Linus Pauling

Chemistry

1954

"For his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances"

Ernest Hemingway

Literature

1954

"For his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style"

John F. Enders

Frederick C. Robbins

Thomas H. Weller

Medicine

1954

"For their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue"

Vincent du Vigneaud

Chemistry

1955

"For his work on biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone"

Polykarp Kusch

Physics

1955

"For his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron"

Willis E. Lamb

Physics

1955

"For his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum"

Andre F. Cournand

Dickinson W. Richards

(Werner Forssmann)

Medicine

1956

"For their discoveries concerning heart catheterization and pathological changes in the circulatory system"

John Bardeen

Walter H. Brattain

William B. Shockley

Physics

1956

"For their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect"

Joshua Lederberg

Medicine

1958

"For his discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material of bacteria"

George W. Beadle

Edward Tatum

Medicine

1958

"For their discovery that genes act by regulating definite chemical events"

Joseph Lederberg

Medicine

1958

"For his discoveries concerning genetic recombination and the organization of the genetic material of bacteria"

Arthur Kornberg

Severo Ochoa

Medicine

1959

"For their discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid"

Owen Chamberlain

(Emilio Segre)

Physics

1959

"For their discovery of the antiproton"

1960s

Willard F. Libby

Chemistry

1960

"For his method to use carbon-14 for age determination in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science"

Donald A. Glaser

Physics

1960

"For the invention of the bubble chamber"

Melvin Calvin

Chemistry

1961

"For his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants"

Robert Hofstadter

Physics

1961

"For his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the stucture of the nucleons"

John Steinbeck

Literature

1962

"For his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception"

James Watson

(Francis Crick)

(Maurice Wilkins)

Medicine

1962

"For their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material"

Linus Pauling

Peace

1962

Worked with Russian, American, and British leaders to negotiate the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963

Maria Goeppert-Mayer

(J. Hans D. Jensen)

Physics

1963

"For their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure"

Eugene Wigner

Physics

1963

"For his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles"

Martin Luther King

Peace

1964

Leader of "Southern Christian Leadership Conference"

Charles H. Townes

(Nicolay Gennadiyevich Basov)

(Aleksandr Prokhorov)

Physics

1964

"For fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle"

Robert B. Woodward

Chemistry

1965

"For his outstanding achievements in the art of organic synthesis"

Richard P. Feynman

Julian Schwinger

(Sin-Itiro Tomonaga)

Physics

1965

"For their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles"

Robert S. Mulliken

Chemistry

1966

"For his fundamental work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules by the molecular orbital method"

Charles B. Huggins

Medicine

1966

"For his discoveries concerning hormonal treatment of prostatic cancer"

Peyton Rous

Medicine

1966

"For his discovery of tumour-inducing viruses"

Haldan K. Hartline

(Ragnar Granit)

George Wald

Medicine

1967

"For their discoveries concerning the primary physiological and chemical visual processes in the eye"

Hans Bethe

Physics

1967

"For his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars"

Lars Onsager

Chemistry

1968

"For the discovery of the reciprocal relations bearing his name, which are fundamental for the thermodynamics of irreversible processes"

Robert W. Holley

H. Gobind Khorana

Marshall W. Nirenberg

Medicine

1968

"For their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis"

Luis Alvarez

Physics

1968

"For his decisive contributions to elementary particle physics, in particular the discovery of a large number of resonance states, made possible through his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chamber and data analysis"

Max Delbruck

Alfred D. Hershey

Murray Gell-Mann

Medicine

1969

"For their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses"

Murray Gell-Mann

Physics

1969

"For his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions"

1970s

Paul A. Samuelson

Economics

1970

"For the scientific work through which he has developed static and dynamic economic theory and actively contributed to raising the level of analysis in economic science"

Julius Axelrod

(Sir Bernard Katz)

(Ulf von Euler)

Medicine

1970

"For their discoveries concerning the humoral transmittors in the nerve terminals and the mechanism for their storage, release and inactivation"

Simon Kuznets

Economics

1971

"For his empirically founded interpretation of economic growth, which has led to new and deepened insight into the economic and social structure and process of development"

Earl W. Sutherland, Jr.

Medicine

1971

"For his discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones"

Christian Anfinsen

Chemistry

1972

"For his work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation"

Stanford Moore

William Stein

Chemistry

1972

"For their contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active centre of the ribonuclease molecule"

Kenneth J. Arrow

(John R. Hicks)

Economics

1972

"For their pioneering contributions to general economic equilibrium theory and welfare theory"

Gerald M. Edelman

(Rodney R. Porter)

Medicine

1972

"For their discoveries concerning the chemical structure of antibodies"

John Bardeen

Leon N. Cooper

Robert Schrieffer

Physics

1972

"For their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory"

Henry Kissinger

(Le Duc Tho)

Peace

1973

Former Secretary of State, during the Vietnam War

(Democratic Republic of Vietnam; declined the prize)

Ivar Giaever

(Leo Esaki)

Physics

1973

"For their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively"

Paul J. Flory

Chemistry

1974

"For his fundamental achievements, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of the macromolecules"

George E. Palade

(Albert Claude)

(Christian de Duve)

Medicine

1974

"For their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell"

Thalling C. Koopmans

(Leonid Vitaliyevich Kantorovich)

Economics

1975

"For their contributions to the theory of optimum allocation of resources"

David Baltimore

(Renato Dulbecco)

Howard M. Temin

Medicine

1975

"For their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell"

Ben R. Mottelson

(Aage Niels Bohr)

James Rainwater

Physics

1975

"For the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection"

William Lipscomb

Chemistry

1976

"For his studies on the structure of boranes illuminating problems of chemical bonding"

Milton Friedman

Economics

1976

"For his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy"

Baruch S. Blumberg

D. Carleton Gajdusek

Medicine

1976

"For their discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases"

Burton Richter

Samuel C.C. Ting

Physics

1976

"For their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind"

Roger Guillemin

Andrew V. Schally

Medicine

1977

"For their discoveries concerning the peptide hormone production of the brain"

Rosalyn Yalow

Medicine

1977

"For the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones"

Philip W. Anderson

(Sir Nevill Francis Mott)

John H. van Vleck

Physics

1977

"For their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems"

Herbert A. Simon

Economics

1978

"For his pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations"

Daniel Nathans

(Werner Arber)

Hamilton O. Smith

Medicine

1978

"For the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics"

Arno Penzias

Robert Woodrow Wilson

Physics

1978

"For their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation"

Theodore W. Schultz

(Sir Arthur Lewis)

Economics

1979

"For their pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries"

Alan M. Cormack

Godfrey N. Hounsfield

Medicine

1979

"For the development of computer assisted tomography"

Sheldon Glashow

(Abdus Salam)

Steven Weinberg

Physics

1979

"For their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current"

1980s

Paul Berg

Chemistry

1980

"For his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA"

Walter Gilbert

(Frederick Sanger)

Chemistry

1980

"For their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids"

Lawrence R. Klein

Economics

1980

"For the creation of econometric models and the application to the analysis of economic fluctuations and economic policies"

Baruj Benacerraf

(Jean Dausset)

George D. Snell

Medicine

1980

"For their discoveries concerning genetically determined structures on the cell surface that regulate immunological reactions"

Val Fitch

James Cronin

Physics

1980

"For the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons"

Czesław Miłosz

Literature

1980

"who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts"

Roger Sperry

Medicine

1981

"For his discoveries concerning the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres"

David Hubel

Medicine

1981

"For their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system"

Nicolaas Bloembergen

Arthur Schawlow

Physics

1981

"For their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy"

James Tobin

Economics

1981

"For his analysis of financial markets and their relations to expenditure decisions, employment, production and prices"

Roald Hoffmann

Chemistry

1981

"For their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions"

Kenneth Wilson

Physics

1982

"For his theory for critical phenomena in connection with phase transitions"

George Stigler

Economics

1982

"For his seminal studies of industrial structures, functioning of markets and causes and effects of public regulation"