PAGES : Expanding Humanity

“They have contributed to our nation’s intellectual vitality,” Lynne V. Cheney, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, said in announcing the 1992 winners of the Charles Frankel Prize.

The prestigious award, which includes $5,000 for each recipient, honors Americans who have helped expand the public’s understanding of history, literature, philosophy or other subjects in the humanities.

This year’s five winners, who will be honored in Washington in November:

* Allan Bloom, political philosophy professor whose best-selling 1987 book, “The Closing of the American Mind,” continues to shape public and academic discussion.

* Shelby Foote, Civil War historian whose commentary in the acclaimed PBS documentary “The Civil War,” brought to life the events and personalities of that conflict.

* Richard Rodriquez, writer-journalist whose award-winning autobiography, “Hunger of Memory,” is widely included in college and university curricula as well as in public discussion groups.

* Harold K. Skramstad Jr., president of the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Mich., whose innovative work has set a national standard in the museum field.

* Eudora Welty, Pulitzer Prize-winning Southern author whose works during a 50-year career have won her a reputation as a literary national treasure.