Howard Walter Blakeslee (March 21, 1880 - May 2, 1952) was an American journalist. He was the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

's first full-time science reporter and was awarded the

Pulitzer Prize for Reporting The Pulitzer Prize for Reporting was awarded from 1917 to 1947. Winners *1917: Herbert Bayard Swope, ''New York World'', for articles which appeared October 10, October 15 and from November 4 daily to November 22, 1916, inclusive, entitled, "Ins ...

in 1937.''Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners'', Elizabeth A. Brennan, Elizabeth C. Clarage, eds. (Oryx Press, 1999)
"Howard Walter Blakeslee"
/ref> Blakeslee was born in 1880 to Jesse Walter Blakeslee and Jennie (Howard) in New Dungeness (now

Dungeness Dungeness () is a headland on the coast of Kent, England, formed largely of a shingle beach in the form of a cuspate foreland. It shelters a large area of low-lying land, Romney Marsh. Dungeness spans Dungeness Nuclear Power Station, the hamlet ...

), Washington. After attending the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, he became, in 1901, a news writer (soon after, feature writer) for the

Detroit Journal The ''Detroit Journal'' was a newspaper published in Detroit, Michigan from September 1, 1883 through March 23, 1922. The ''Detroit Evening Journal'', established by Lloyd Brezee, started as a two-cent daily with Brezee in the position of editor a ...

. Between 1903 and 1905, he was a sports writer for Chicago and Detroit newspapers. He joined the Associated Press in 1906. Between then and 1916, he was a bureau chief in New Orleans, Atlanta, and Dallas. He was news editor in Chicago from 1916 to 1926, then moved to New York where, after two years as photo service editor, his title became Science Editor, AP's first. Blakeslee (along with four other reporters from different papers) won the

1937 Pulitzer Prize The following are the Pulitzer Prizes for 1937. Journalism awards Letters and Drama Awards *Novel: ** ''Gone with the Wind'' by Margaret Mitchell (Macmillan). *Drama: ** '' You Can't Take It with You'' by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman ( Farra ...

for the group's collective coverage of science at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

's tercentenary celebration. A better-known winner that year was

Margaret Mitchell Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell (November 8, 1900 – August 16, 1949) was an American novelist and journalist. Mitchell wrote only one novel, published during her lifetime, the American Civil War-era novel '' Gone with the Wind'', for which she wo ...

, who won for

Gone With the Wind Gone with the Wind most often refers to: * Gone with the Wind (novel), ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell * Gone with the Wind (film), ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel Gone with the Win ...

. Blakeslee reported extensively on the

atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

in the immediate post-war era and was among the group of reporters who witnessed the early tests at

Yucca Flat Yucca Flat is a closed desert drainage basin, one of four major nuclear test regions within the Nevada Test Site (NTS), and is divided into nine test sections: Areas 1 through 4 and 6 through 10. Yucca Flat is located at the eastern edge of NTS, ...

. Also interested in the subject of

atomic power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

, his book publications include ''Miracle of Atomics'' (1945), ''The Atomic Future'' (1946), and ''Atomic Progress: The Hydrogen Race'' (1951). In addition to the Pulitzer, his awards include the National Headliners Club award (1940), the George Westinghouse Science Writers award of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

(1946). The Howard W. Blakeslee Award of the

American Heart Association The American Heart Association (AHA) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that funds cardiovascular medical research, educates consumers on healthy living and fosters appropriate cardiac care in an effort to reduce disability and death ...

is named in his honor. Blakeslee was married twice, first in 1906 to Marguerite Fortune and second, after the death of his first wife, to Rosamund Robinson in 1936. Blakeslee and Rosamund had three children: Howard, Rosamund, and Alan. His son from his first marriage, Alton Blakeslee, eventually succeeded him as science editor at AP, retiring in 1985. His granddaughter (Alton's daughter) is

Sandra Blakeslee Sandra Blakeslee (born 1943) is an American science correspondent of over four decades for ''The New York Times'' and science writer, specializing in neuroscience. Together with neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran, she authored the 1998 popular sci ...

, a long-time science reporter for the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

. Sandra's son Matthew Blakeslee is also a full-time science writer, thus representing the fourth generation of Howard Blakeslee's notable science-reportorial dynasty. Howard Blakeslee died in 1952, shortly after returning from return a visit to the atomic bomb testing site in Nevada."Howard Blakeslee"
Physics Today, vol. 5, iss. 7 (July, 1952).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blakeslee, Howard W. 1880 births 1952 deaths American science journalists American male journalists Pulitzer Prize for Reporting winners People from Clallam County, Washington Journalists from Washington (state) Associated Press reporters University of Michigan alumni