Achievements

  • Kate Smith sold nearly 400,000 pages of sheet music for “God Bless America.” On March 21, 1939, Kate’s song “The Star Spangled Banner” also became an instant hit after she recorded both for RCA Victor.
  • Kate was a Grammy Award Winner in 1966 for Best Gospel Album, How Great Thou Art.
  • Kate was awarded America’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Ronald Reagan on October 26, 1982.
  • In 1985, Kate Smith received the Women’s International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award.
  • In 1999, Kate was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.
  • Kate was awarded two Stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. One star is for recording and the other for radio.
  • Kate Smith was featured on a U.S. commemorative stamp in 2010. The art on the stamp was based on a photograph of Smith that was taken back in the 1960s.
  • Kate acted for many companies as a commercial spokesperson, such as Studebaker, Pullman, and Jello.
  • She did a command performance for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the White House on June 8, 1939. She was:
    • The only radio artist to be listed among the 10 leading American women by the publication American Women.
    • The only private citizen ever awarded the Legion of Valor medal.
    • The only private citizen privileged to use the President’s entrance to Union Station, Washington.
    • Honorary member of the Red Cross for which she raised more than $4 million.
  • She won at least four Scripps-Howard and Hearst newspaper popularity polls, and has never been lower than second, and was awarded a Patriotic Service Cross by the United Flag Association. Only three other women have ever been so honored. She received a Drake University medallion for “outstanding contributions to radio and the people.”
  • Smith was inducted posthumously into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1999. She was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
  • In 2010, a U.S. commemorative stamp was issued featuring stamp art duplicating artwork created for the cover of a CD titled Kate Smith: The Songbird of the South. The artwork was based on a photograph of Smith taken in the 1960s.
  • On July 21, 2011, Smith’s version of “God Bless America” was played as NASA’s final wake-up call for the space shuttle Atlantis, ending the 30-year shuttle program.
  • She did a command performance for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the White House on June 8, 1939.