PHILADELPHIA Thomas P. Hughes, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania has become the first historian and one of the few Americans to receive an honorary doctorate from the prestigious Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Hughes, Mellon Professor Emeritus in Penn Department of History and Sociology of Science, joined three other recipients at Stockholm City Hall on Nov. 10 in a lavish ceremony featuring men in white ties and tails, opera singers and cannons firing outside. Each of the four honorees received a silk top hat and a gold ring.

In making the award, the Royal Institute of Technology cited Hughes for "groundbreaking contributions to the history of technology. His books on the history of electricity and society and on major inventors have established high standards for his field."

As a visiting professor at the Royal Institute of Technology for one month each summer from 1985 to 1990, Hughes contributed substantially to the establishment of a history of technology department there. That department has since grown into one of the world finest in that discipline.

Hughes, a member of the Penn faculty since 1973, has also served as a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and two German institutions. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a past recipient of Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships.

In addition to Penn Department of History and Sociology of Science, Hughes has chaired the NASA History Advisory Committee, the U.S. National Committee for the History and Philosophy of Science and the Society for the History of Technology. He serves as a history consultant to ABC-TV.

Hughes has authored four books on the history of technology in America and Europe; one of these, American Genesis: A Century of Innovation and Technological Enthusiasm 1870-1970, was a finalist for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize in history. He has also edited seven books, two of them with his late wife, Agatha. Hughes is now at work on a book on the cultural history of technology since 1800.