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A Love Letter to Concord:
A Conversation with Doris Kearns Goodwin
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Nestled in the sitting room of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s beautiful Concord home, I find myself in a cozy atmosphere that downplays the importance of the leather-bound volumes surrounding us as we chat. Photos of Doris and her late husband, Richard N. Goodwin (Dick Goodwin, as he was widely known), are hung alongside images of the Queen of England, Presidents – both Democrat and Republican, and even Che Guevara. These portraits are intermingled with family photos and treasures brought back from faraway lands. The impressive woman in front of me is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a frequent guest on news channels and talk shows, a worldrenowned speaker, a powerful role model, and a sought-after mentor. Today, however, in this inviting home designed as much for family and entertaining friends as it is for creating awardwinning books, I have the true pleasure of sitting with my friend and neighbor to talk about her amazing life. 8
BY JENNIFER C. SCHÜNEMANN
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s interest in leadership began more than half a century ago, as a professor at Harvard. Her experiences working for Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House and later assisting him on his memoirs led to her first book Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She followed up with the Pulitzer Prizewinning No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor and the Home Front in World War II. She earned the Lincoln Prize for the runaway bestseller Team of Rivals, the basis for Steven
Spielberg’s award-winning film “Lincoln”, and the Carnegie Medal for The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. These presidents became affectionately known to Doris as “her guys” and they form the basis of her discussions around leadership. “After five decades of studying presidential history, examining these men through the lens of leadership allowed me to discover so many new things about them that I felt as if I was meeting them for the first time,” she said. “Their stories have provided me a lifetime of joy as an historian and continue to be a source of great inspiration.” That inspiration produced another New York Times bestseller in the form of her latest work Leadership In Turbulent Times, which was released a year ago to international acclaim. While the book focuses on historical examples of leadership, readers will draw important lessons as they relate to our current times. A Doris and Lady Bird Johnson look on as paperback version will be released President Johnson addresses a crowd. on October 1st of this year.
Frank Wolfe, courtesy of the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum
Discover CONCORD
| Fall 2019
