He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois that year, and remained there until he joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1966.
Edelman was awarded a University Houses chair in 1971, which he named for George Herbert Mead, an inspiration for much of his own work on symbolic politics.
Edelman received many awards during his career, including Fulbright Awards and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
A brief review of his seminal book, The Symbolic Uses of Politics appearing in ETC., the quarterly journal of General Semantics (Arthur A. Berger, September 1971 issue—Vol 28, No.
3) noted that Edelman's approach and analysis would be congenial to students of General Semantics.