Columbia University celebrated the Pulitzer Prize Centennial, recognizing dozens of reporters, authors, photographers, playwrights and cartoonists from over 20 publications on Monday, April 18th.

In 1917, the university introduced the Pulitzer Prizes to commemorate journalism and the arts. Herbert Bayard Swope received the very first award for his reporting on World War I in Germany in an article that highlighted the bitterness and brutality of war. Today, the award honors dozens of artists and writer who document the trials and tribulations of the human race, educating the masses and calling attention to important issues just as Swope’s article did an entire century ago ago.

“The Pulitzer Prize has made a significant contribution to our country and those who live in it by acknowledging influential writers around the world,” Kelly Shen (9) said. “Reading pieces that have received this prize is really inspiring to me.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical Hamilton received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The drama, based off the biography Alexander Hamilton, retells the story of the ambitious founding father and how he went from being an orphan on the Caribbean island to establishing a legacy as an American war hero and founding father.

The performance consists of two acts, the first act revolving around Hamilton’s pivotal role in the American Revolution and the second comprising of Hamilton’s burdens in the aftermath of the Constitutional Convention as Secretary of Treasury.

The musical features a diverse cast of performers. Miranda himself portrays the title character of the musical, while singer-actor Leslie Odom Jr. plays the part of Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson’s Vice-President who kills Hamilton in a duel. While Burr is customarily viewed as a villain, the musical portrays him more sympathetically, touching upon his exile in the aftermath of Hamilton’s death.

“I think [Hamilton] is character-driven in a way that history usually is not; it’s not about good guys and bad guys,” Andrew Rule (11), who watched the play during the spring break trip to New York, said. “If you look at Aaron Burr and you look at Alexander Hamilton, you might start to wonder who is the real hero and who is the real villain.”

Tickets for the show are nearly impossible to find, the musical having sold out within a few months of premiering. Upper School performing arts director Laura Lang Ree will be viewing Hamilton on Broadway this summer.

“I think it’s absolutely the right choice. It’s revolutionary in the musical theater industry and on a larger scale as well,” she said. “What they did in terms of not only the historical text and turning it into music, but the casting– the representation of all the different characters– is so unique, a complete game changer. Many of the kids I work with are fairly obsessed with Hamilton– I hope to do it someday.”

In addition to drama, the Pulitzer Prize has honored some of the most famous authors and poets of each generation, including Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, Harper Lee, and William Carlos Williams. This year’s recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is Viet Thanh Nguyen for his novel The Sympathizer, a first person narrative of the life of a Vietnamese immigrant in America. Peter Balakain’s collection of his nostalgic, melancholy poems with a recurring speaker, Ozone Journal, won the award for poetry.

The awards primarily commemorate journalists who report and write on significant, topical issues. Journalists from large news organizations such as the New Yorker, the Associated Press, the New York Times and the Boston Globe received awards, but the Pulitzer also honored smaller news corporations such as the Sacramento Bee in California and the Sarasota-herald Tribune in Florida.

The Pulitzer Prize has a reputation of commemorating the most iconic photos throughout history with awards. This year, the recipients of the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography documented the migrant crisis with their pictures.

For the last one hundred years, the Pulitzers have not solely been about awarding journalistic and artistic excellence, but about acknowledging the humanity of the recipients for their contributions towards society.

“The Pulitzers stretch beyond the award- they recognize philanthropy and rise consciousness,” Vaughn said. “The fact that somebody is making us think about issues that they report about, write about, write fiction about, create a play about- I think that those things are more important than the prize ultimately. The prize recognizes the hard work, but the hard work helps us recognize these issues.”