Sumner Chilton Powell (October 2, 1924 in

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571. Northampton is known as an acade ...

– July 8, 1993 in

Colora, Maryland Colora is an unincorporated community in western Cecil County, Maryland, United States, near Conowingo and Port Deposit. The ZIP code of this area is 21917, and has some historic houses and some new structures, such as some development neighbor ...

) was an American historian and history teacher at the Choate School, a college-prep

boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...

Wallingford, Connecticut Wallingford is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, centrally located between New Haven and Hartford, and Boston and New York City. The population was 44,396 at the 2020 census. The community was named after Wallingford, in En ...

. He attended

The Taft School The Taft School is a private, coeducational school located in Watertown, Connecticut, United States. It teaches students in 9th through 12th grades and post-graduates. About three-quarters of Taft's roughly 600 students live on the school's ...

Watertown, Connecticut Watertown is a New England town, town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 22,105 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. The ZIP codes for Watertown are 06795 (for most of the ...

, earned a bachelor's degree from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

in 1946, and from 1947 to 1952 was an active US Naval Officer attaining the rank of Lieutenant (jg), but remained a Naval Reserve Officer until 1961. He earned a doctorate in history from

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 ...

in 1956. In 1957 he published ''From Mythical to Medieval Man''. He won the 1964

Pulitzer Prize for History The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...

for '' Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town'' (1963), based on records on Sudbury, Massachusetts from 1638–1660, tracing every settler back to England.

References

External links

* 1924 births 1993 deaths Historians of New England Pulitzer Prize for History winners Taft School alumni Amherst College alumni Harvard University alumni 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers {{US-historian-stub