Doris Helen Kearns Goodwin (born January 4, 1943) is an American biographer, historian, former
sports journalist, and political commentator. She has written biographies of several U.S. presidents, including ''Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream''; ''The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga''; ''
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln''; and ''
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism''. Goodwin's book ''
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II'' won the
Pulitzer Prize for History
The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...
in 1995. Goodwin also produced the American television miniseries ''
Washington''.
She was also executive producer of 'Abraham Lincoln,' a 2022 docudrama on the History Channel. This latter series was based on Goodwin's ''
Leadership in Turbulent Times.''
Early life and education
Doris Helen Kearns was born in
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York, the daughter of Helen Witt (''née'' Miller) and Michael Francis Aloysius Kearns. She has a sister, Jene Kearns.
She was raised
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. Her paternal grandparents were Irish immigrants.
She grew up in
Rockville Centre, New York, where she graduated from
South Side High School.
She attended
Colby College in
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
, where she was a member of
Delta Delta Delta
Delta Delta Delta (), also known as Tri Delta, is an international women's fraternity founded on November 27, 1888 at Boston University by Sarah Ida Shaw, Eleanor Dorcas Pond, Isabel Morgan Breed, and Florence Isabelle Stewart.
Tri Delta part ...
and
Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated ''
magna cum laude'' in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She was awarded a
Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in 1964
to pursue doctoral studies. In 1968, she earned a PhD in government from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, with a thesis titled "Prayer and Reapportionment: An Analysis of the Relationship between the Congress and the Court."
Career and awards
In 1967, Kearns went to Washington, D.C. as a
White House Fellow
The White House Fellows program is a federal fellowship program established via Executive Order by President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson in October 1964, based upon a suggestion from John W. Gardner, then the president of Carnegie Corp ...
during the
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
administration. Johnson initially expressed interest in hiring the young intern as his Oval Office assistant, but after an article by Kearns appeared in ''
The New Republic'' laying out a scenario for Johnson's removal from office over his conduct of the
war in Vietnam, she was instead assigned to the Department of Labor; Goodwin has written that she felt relieved to be able to remain in the internship program in any capacity at all. "The president discovered that I had been actively involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement and had written an article entitled, 'How to Dump Lyndon Johnson'. I thought for sure he would kick me out of the program, but instead, he said, 'Oh, bring her down here for a year and if I can't win her over, no one can'." After Johnson decided not to run for reelection, he brought Kearns to the White House as a member of his staff, where she focused on domestic anti-poverty efforts.
After Johnson left office in 1969, Kearns taught government at
Harvard for 10 years, including a course on the American presidency. During this period, she also assisted Johnson in drafting his memoirs. Her first book ''Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream'', which drew upon her conversations with the late president, was published in 1977, becoming a
''New York Times'' bestseller and provided a launching pad for her literary career.
A sports journalist as well, Goodwin was the first woman to enter the
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...
locker room in 1979. She consulted on and appeared in
Ken Burns' 1994 documentary ''
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...
''.
Goodwin won the 1995
Pulitzer Prize for History
The Pulitzer Prize for History, administered by Columbia University, is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished book about the history ...
for ''
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front During World War II'' (1994).
In 1996, Goodwin received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...
.
Goodwin received an honorary
L.H.D. from
Bates College
Bates College () is a private liberal arts college in Lewiston, Maine. Anchored by the Historic Quad, the campus of Bates totals with a small urban campus which includes 33 Victorian Houses as some of the dormitories. It maintains of nature p ...
in 1998.
[
][
][
] She was awarded an honorary doctorate from
Westfield State College
Westfield State University (Westfield State) is a public university in Westfield, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1839 by Horace Mann as the first public co-educational college in America without barrier to race, gender, or economic class.
Ran ...
in 2008.
Goodwin was on air talking to
Tom Brokaw
Thomas John Brokaw (; born February 6, 1940) is an American retired network television journalist and author. He first served as the co-anchor of ''The Today Show'' from 1976 to 1981 with Jane Pauley, then as the anchor and managing editor of '' ...
of
NBC News during their ''
2000 Presidential Election Night Coverage'' when Brokaw announced NBC's projection that the state of
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
had voted for
George W. Bush thus making him president.
Goodwin won the 2005
Lincoln Prize (for the best book about the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
) for ''
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln'' (2005), a book about
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
's
presidential cabinet. Part of the book was adapted by
Tony Kushner
Anthony Robert Kushner (born July 16, 1956) is an American author, playwright, and screenwriter. Lauded for his work on stage he's most known for his seminal work ''Angels in America'' which earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. At the turn ...
into the screenplay for
Steven Spielberg's 2012 film ''
Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincol ...
''. She was a member of the
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission advisory board. The book also won the inaugural
American History Book Prize
The New-York Historical Society gives three book prizes annually. From 2005 to 2012 there was one award for American history. A second award was added in 2013 for children's history. A third award was added in 2016 for military history.
Barbara a ...
given by the
New-York Historical Society
The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum ...
.
Goodwin was a member of the board of directors of
Northwest Airlines
Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA) was a major American airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines, Inc. by a merger. The merger, approved on October 29, 2008, made Delta the largest airline in the world until the American Airlines ...
.
Goodwin is a frequent guest commentator on ''
Meet the Press'', having appeared many times during the tenures of hosts
Tim Russert
Timothy John Russert (May 7, 1950 – June 13, 2008) was an American television journalist and lawyer who appeared for more than 16 years as the longest-serving moderator of NBC's ''Meet the Press''. He was a senior vice president at NBC News, Wa ...
,
Tom Brokaw
Thomas John Brokaw (; born February 6, 1940) is an American retired network television journalist and author. He first served as the co-anchor of ''The Today Show'' from 1976 to 1981 with Jane Pauley, then as the anchor and managing editor of '' ...
,
David Gregory, and
Chuck Todd
Charles David Todd (born April 8, 1972) is an American television journalist who is the 12th and current moderator of NBC's ''Meet the Press''. He also hosts ''Meet the Press Now'', its daily edition on NBC News Now and is the Political Directo ...
. She was also a regular guest on ''
Charlie Rose'', appearing a total of forty-eight times beginning in 1994.
Stephen King met with Goodwin while he was writing his novel ''
11/22/63
''11/22/63'' is a novel by Stephen King about a time traveller who attempts to prevent the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, which occurred on November 22, 1963 (the novel's titular date). It is the 60th book published b ...
'', since she had been an assistant to Johnson. King used some of her ideas in the novel on what a worst-case scenario would be like if history had changed.
[Alter, Alexandra (October 28, 2011)]
"Stephen King's New Monster"
''The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
''.
In 2014, Kearns won the
Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
__NOTOC__
The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction were established in 2012 to recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the U.S. in the previous year. They are named in honor of ni ...
for ''
The Bully Pulpit''.
It was also a
Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ...
finalist (History, 2013) and was named one of the ''
Christian Science Monitor
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρισ ...
s 15 best nonfiction books in 2013.
In 2016, she appeared as herself in the
fifth episode of ''
American Horror Story: Roanoke'', and made a cameo appearance playing herself as a teacher in the
''Simpsons'' episode "
The Town".
Plagiarism controversies
In 2002, ''
The Weekly Standard'' determined that Goodwin's book ''The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys'' used without attribution numerous phrases and sentences from three other books: ''Times to Remember'' by
Rose Kennedy
Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald Kennedy (July 22, 1890 – January 22, 1995) was an American philanthropist, socialite, and matriarch of the Kennedy family. She was deeply embedded in the " lace curtain" Irish American community in Boston. Her father ...
; ''The Lost Prince'' by
Hank Searls; and ''
Kathleen Kennedy: Her Life and Times'' by
Lynne McTaggart. McTaggart remarked, "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." Goodwin had previously reached a "private settlement" with McTaggart over the issue. In an article she wrote for ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' magazine, she said, "Though my footnotes repeatedly cited Ms. McTaggart's work, I failed to provide quotation marks for phrases that I had taken verbatim... The larger question for those of us who write history is to understand how citation mistakes can happen."
In its analysis of the controversy,
''Slate'' magazine criticized Goodwin for the aggrieved tone of her explanation, and suggested Goodwin's worst offense was allowing the plagiarism to remain in future editions of the book even after it was brought to her attention.
The plagiarism controversy caused Goodwin to resign from the
Pulitzer Prize Board and to relinquish her position as a regular guest on the ''
PBS NewsHour
''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS member stations. It airs seven nights a week, and is known for its in-depth coverage of issues and current events.
Anchored by Judy Woodruff, the pro ...
'' program.
The ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' also reported on a passage in ''No Ordinary Time'' which appeared to use highly similar language and phrasing to one in
Joseph P. Lash's 1971 book ''Eleanor & Franklin''; Goodwin includes a citation for Lash in the bibliography, though the article questions if this is sufficient for the use of similar "framing language" between the two texts. In response, Goodwin said that she had met "the highest standards of historical scholarship" for the passage in question.
Personal life
Growing up on
Long Island, Goodwin was a fan of the
Brooklyn Dodgers. She remembered that her father would have her document the events of a baseball game from the radio, and "replay" the events for him when he returned home. Goodwin stopped following baseball after the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, but later became a
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...
fan while attending Harvard, and is now a
season ticket holder.
In 1975, Kearns married
Richard N. Goodwin, who had worked in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations as an adviser and speechwriter. The two met in mid-1972 at
Harvard's Institute of Politics.
Richard Goodwin was a widower who had a son, also named Richard, from his first marriage. At the time he and Kearns married, his son was nine years old.
The couple, who lived in
Concord, Massachusetts, had two sons together, Michael and Joseph.
Richard Goodwin died on May 20, 2018, after a brief battle with cancer.
Bibliography
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References
External links
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Doris Kearns Goodwin discusses ''Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln''at the
Pritzker Military Museum & Library
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Interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin ''A DISCUSSION WITH National Authors on Tour'' TV Series, Episode #116 (1994)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodwin, Doris Kearns
1943 births
20th-century American biographers
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Living people
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Northwest Airlines
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