Doris Kearns Goodwin (born
Doris Helen Kearns on January 4, 1943) is a
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City....
-winning American biographer and
historianAn historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time...
, and an oft-seen political commentator. She is the author of biographies of several U.S. Presidents, including
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream;
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga;
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995); and her most recent book,
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham LincolnTeam of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a non-fiction book written by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, first published by Simon & Schuster on October 25, 2005. The book is a biographical portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and some of the men who served with him in his...
.
Doris Kearns was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in
Rockville Centre, New YorkRockville Centre is a village located in New York's Nassau County on Long Island in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a total population of 24,568....
.
Doris Kearns Goodwin (born
Doris Helen Kearns on January 4, 1943) is a
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City....
-winning American biographer and
historianAn historian is an individual who studies and writes about history, and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all events in time...
, and an oft-seen political commentator. She is the author of biographies of several U.S. Presidents, including
Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream;
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga;
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (which won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995); and her most recent book,
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham LincolnTeam of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a non-fiction book written by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, first published by Simon & Schuster on October 25, 2005. The book is a biographical portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and some of the men who served with him in his...
.
Early life and education
Doris Kearns was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in
Rockville Centre, New YorkRockville Centre is a village located in New York's Nassau County on Long Island in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a total population of 24,568....
. She attended
Colby CollegeColby College, founded in 1813, is an American private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine.Colby is the 12th oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States. Approximately 1,800 students from 62 countries are enrolled annually; the college offers 53...
in
MaineThe State of Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordering the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, New Hampshire to the southwest, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is the northernmost portion of...
where she was a member of Tri Delta and Phi Beta Kappa; graduating
magna cum laude in 1964 with a
Bachelor of ArtsBachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences or both....
degree. She was awarded a
Woodrow Wilson FellowshipThe Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation is a private non-profit grant-making foundation based in Princeton, New Jersey.- History and funding :Originally conceived in 1945, it was funded in 1947 with a founding grant from the Carnegie Corporation...
in 1964 to pursue her doctoral studies. In 1968 she earned her
Ph.D.Ph.D. or PHD may stand for:* Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group* Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip* PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* Parisada Hindu Dharma, an Indonesian organization...
in government from
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
for a thesis entitled "Prayer and reapportionment: an analysis of the relationship between the congress and the court." She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Westfield State College in 2008.
Career and awards
In 1967, Kearns went to
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790...
, as a White House Fellow during the
Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969 after his service as the Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963...
administration. Johnson offered the young intern a job as his assistant, an offer which was not withdrawn even after an article by Kearns appeared in
The New RepublicThe New Republic is an American magazine of politics and the arts. It is published semimonthly and has a circulation of approximately 60,000. The editor-in-chief is Martin Peretz and the current editor is Franklin Foer...
laying out a scenario for Johnson's removal from office over his conduct of the
war in VietnamThe Vietnam War or the Second Indochina War was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1959 to 30 April 1975...
.
After Johnson left office in 1969, Kearns taught government at
HarvardHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
for ten years, including a course on the
American PresidencyThe President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in the United States by influence and recognition...
. During this period she also assisted Johnson in drafting his
memoirAs a literary genre, a memoir , forms a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable in modern parlance. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir, as listed here...
s. Her first book,
Lyndon Johnson & the American Dream, which drew upon her conversations with the late president, was published in 1977. The book became a
New York Times bestseller and provided a launching pad for her literary career.
Goodwin was the first female journalist to enter the
Boston Red SoxThe Boston Red Sox are a member of the Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Since , the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park. The "Red Sox" name originates from the iconic uniform feature....
locker room. She consulted on and appeared in
Ken BurnsKenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films known for his style of making use of archival footage and photographs...
' 1994 documentary
BaseballBaseball: A Film by Ken Burns is an 18 1/2 hour, Emmy Award-winning documentary series by Ken Burns about the game of baseball. First broadcast on PBS, this was Burns' ninth documentary.- Format :...
.
Goodwin won the
Pulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by Hungarian-American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City....
in 1995 for
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Homefront During World War II. Goodwin received an honorary L.H.D. from
Bates CollegeBates College is a private liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists. Bates confers Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degrees. Bates College is one of the first colleges to be coeducational from establishment...
in 1998.
Goodwin won the 2005 Lincoln Prize (for best book about the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
) for
Team of Rivals, a book about
Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery...
's Presidential Cabinet. She is currently a member of the
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial CommissionThe Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission is a federally appointed 15-member commission focused on planning and commemorating the 200th birthday of the United States' 16th president. Lincoln was born in 1809...
advisory board.
Since 1997 Goodwin has been a member of the
Board of DirectorsA board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. The body sometimes has a different name, such as board of trustees, board of governors, board of managers, or executive board...
for
Northwest AirlinesNorthwest Airlines, Inc. , a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, Inc., is a major United States airline headquartered in Eagan, Minnesota, near Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport...
.
Plagiarism controversy
The January 28, 2002 issue of
The Weekly StandardThe Weekly Standard is a American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. It was founded by News Corporation and made its debut on September 18, 1995. Its current editors are founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes. The Weekly Standard produces The Daily Standard with...
made a case for Doris Kearns Goodwin as a plagiarist, arguing that her book,
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, used without attribution numerous phrases and sentences from three other books:
Time to Remember, by Rose Kennedy;
The Lost Prince, by Hank Searl; and
Kathleen KennedyKathleen "Kick" Agnes Kennedy Cavendish , born Kathleen Agnes Kennedy, was the fourth child and second daughter of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald. She was a sister of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and widow of the heir to the Devonshire dukedom.-Biography:When President Franklin D...
: Her Life and Times, by
Lynne McTaggartLynne McTaggart is a journalist and author, most famous for her popular books The Field and The Intention Experiment.McTaggart and her publisher/husband Bryan Hubbard are directors of a public company called "What Doctors Don't Tell You Ltd.", which publishes newsletters that critique mainstream...
.
In a March 24, 2002, interview with the
Associated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, McTaggart said, "If somebody takes a third of somebody's book, which is what happened to me, they are lifting out the heart and guts of somebody else's individual expression."
Once this was made public — and questionable phrases from Goodwin’s book were placed in numerous newspaper and magazine articles side by side with the originals — Goodwin admitted that she had previously reached a large "private settlement" with McTaggart over the issue. She wrote in Time Magazine:
Fourteen years ago, not long after the publication of my book The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, I received a communication from author Lynne McTaggart pointing out that material from her book on Kathleen Kennedy had not been properly attributed. I realized that she was right. Though my footnotes repeatedly cited Ms. McTaggart's work, I failed to provide quotation marks for phrases that I had taken verbatim, having assumed that these phrases, drawn from my notes, were my words, not hers. I made the corrections she requested, and the matter was completely laid to rest—until last week, when the Weekly Standard published an article reviving the issue. The larger question for those of us who write history is to understand how citation mistakes can happen.
An August 2002
Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California since 1881. It is distributed throughout the Western United States. It is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States and the fourth-most widely distributed newspaper in the United States...
story by Peter King reported that there were many passages in Goodwin’s book on the Roosevelts (
No Ordinary Time) that were apparently lifted directly from Joseph Lash’s
Eleanor and Franklin and Hugh Gregory Gallagher’s
FDR’s Splendid Deception, as well as other books. The allegations of plagiarism have damaged her reputation;, causing her to recall the book and to take leave of various positions.
Many in the academic, literary, and entertainment communities have continued to support her and her assertion of innocence. As in the case of
Stephen AmbroseStephen Edward Ambrose, Ph.D. was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a long time professor of history at the University of New Orleans.-Biography:...
, the extensive use of research assistants has been identified as a possible source of this uncredited use of other writers' work. She has attempted to rehabilitate her image by promising to print a correctly attributed version of
The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. Her biography of
Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery...
,
Team Of Rivals, has been free from accusation.
Personal life
In 1975, Kearns married
Richard N. GoodwinRichard N. Goodwin is an American writer who may be best known as an advisor and speechwriter to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and to Senator Robert F. Kennedy....
, who had worked in the Johnson and Kennedy administration as an adviser and a speechwriter. They have three sons, Richard, Michael and Joseph. One of her sons is heading to Iraq for a second tour of duty.
As of 2007, the Goodwins live in
Concord, MassachusettsConcord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2000 Census, the town population was about 17,000. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature...
.
Goodwin revealed in her contributions to
Ken BurnsKenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films known for his style of making use of archival footage and photographs...
' award-winning documentary film
Baseball her life-long support of both the Brooklyn Dodgers and the
Boston Red SoxThe Boston Red Sox are a member of the Major League Baseball’s American League Eastern Division. Since , the Red Sox's home ballpark has been Fenway Park. The "Red Sox" name originates from the iconic uniform feature....
.
Books
- Lyndon Johnson & the American Dream (1977)
- The Fitzgeralds & The Kennedys (1987)
- No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Homefront During World War II (1995)
- Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir (1997)
- Every four years: Presidential campaign coverage (2000) ISBN 0-9655091-7-6
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln is a non-fiction book written by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, first published by Simon & Schuster on October 25, 2005. The book is a biographical portrait of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and some of the men who served with him in his...
(2005) ISBN 0-684-82490-6
Quotations
- "I got to know this crazy character [Lyndon B. Johnson] when I was only 23 years old.... He's still the most formidable, fascinating, frustrating, irritating individual I think I've ever known in my entire life."
- "I just want them to come alive again. That's all you really ask of history."
External links