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Renowned Harvard Child Psychiatrist Robert Coles, Pulitzer Winner, Dies at 97

6/8/2026

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Summary

Story summary

Robert Coles, child psychiatrist and Harvard professor, died at a hospice in Lincoln, Massachusetts, on Thursday at 97.
He spent decades traveling from the South to the Arctic, recording children’s conversations and drawings that formed his Children of Crisis series (1967-1977), which earned Pulitzer Prizes for its second and third volumes in 1973.
Critics called his method unscientific, but David Riesman praised it for breaking stereotypes about police, Southern whites and Black Americans.

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Story summary

Robert Coles, child psychiatrist and Harvard professor, died at a hospice in Lincoln, Massachusetts, on Thursday at 97.
He spent decades traveling from the South to the Arctic, recording children’s conversations and drawings that formed his Children of Crisis series (1967-1977), which earned Pulitzer Prizes for its second and third volumes in 1973.
Critics called his method unscientific, but David Riesman praised it for breaking stereotypes about police, Southern whites and Black Americans.