Portrait of Frederik Pohl

Birthday profile

Frederik Pohl

Frederik Pohl, American journalist and author (died 2013)

Born
November 26, 1919
Died
September 2, 2013
Zodiac sign
Sagittarius
Birth year
1919

About Frederik Pohl

Frederik George Pohl Jr. (; November 26, 1919 – September 2, 2013) was an American science-fiction writer, editor, and fan, with a career spanning nearly 75 years—from his first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna", to the 2011 novel All the Lives He Led. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine. His 1977 novel Gateway won four "year's best novel" awards: the Hugo voted by convention participants, the Locus voted by magazine subscribers, the Nebula voted by American science-fiction writers, and the juried academic John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He won the Campbell Memorial Award again for the 1984 collection of novellas The Years of the City, one of two repeat winners during the first 40 years. For his 1979 novel Jem, Pohl won a U.S. National Book Award in the one-year category Science Fiction, and it was a finalist for three other year's best novel awards. He won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards, including receiving both for the 1977 novel Gateway. He won the inaugural Locus Award for Best Non-fiction in 1979 for his autobiography The Way the Future Was. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America named Pohl its 12th recipient of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 1993 and he was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 1998, its third class of two dead and two living writers. Pohl won the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2010, for his blog, "The Way the Future Blogs".

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Career and life highlights

Frederik Pohl timeline

  1. From about 1959 until 1969, Pohl edited Galaxy and its sister magazine If; the latter won three successive annual Hugo Awards as the year's best professional magazine.
  2. He won four Hugo and three Nebula Awards, including receiving both for the 1977 novel Gateway.
  3. His 1977 novel Gateway won four "year's best n.
  4. For his 1979 novel Jem, Pohl won a U.S.
  5. He won the Campbell Memorial Award again for the 1984 collection of novellas The Years of the City, one of two repeat winners during the first 40 years.

The world when Frederik Pohl was born

Frederik Pohl was born in 1919. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1919

  • Best-selling book"The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" – Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentBlack Sox scandal — 1919 World Series fixed
  • Top headlineTreaty of Versailles signed — 18th Amendment (Prohibition)
  • Technology milestoneFirst nonstop transatlantic flight (Alcock & Brown)
  • Defining fadOuija boards
  • Notable inventionPop-up toaster
  • World population~1.79B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWoodrow Wilson
  • U.S. population103.2M

1919 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Frederik Pohl's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19192026
Gas$0.25$3.45/gal
Average home$5,000$435,000
Average income$2,000$67,500
Movie ticket$0.15$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population103.2M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.