Bernard DeVoto was an author, literary critic, and historian. In 1948, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Across the Wide Missouri, and in 1953 he won the National Book Award for The Course of Empire. From 1935 onward he wrote a regular column, The Easy Chair, for Harper's Magazine. He served as curator for the papers of Mark Twain, and gained popularity for his abridged version of the journals of Lewis and Clark. He was a champion of public lands and the conservation of natural resources, as well as an adamant defender of civil liberties.

Stephen E. Ambrose was a renowned historian and acclaimed author of more than thirty books. Among his New York Times bestsellers are Nothing Like It in the World, Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, D-Day - June 6, 1944, and Undaunted Courage. Dr. Ambrose was a retired Boyd Professor of History at the University of New Orleans and a contributing editor for the Quarterly Journal of Military History.