DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN Biography - Writers

 
 

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DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

Doris Kearns Goodwin (born January 4, 1943 in Brooklyn, New York) is an award-winning       
American author and historian. She won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1995.               
Kearns was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Rockville Centre, New York.           
She received her B.A. degree from Colby College, Maine in 1964. She later earned             
a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.                                               
                                                                                             
Doris Kearns won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship in 1964. Goodwin went to Washington,           
D.C., as a White House Fellow in 1967 during the Johnson administration, working             
as his assistant. After Johnson left office, she assisted the President in                   
drafting his memoirs.                                                                       
                                                                                             
After LBJ's retirement in 1969, Goodwin taught government at Harvard for ten                 
years, including a course on the American Presidency.                                       
                                                                                             
In 1977, her first book was published Lyndon Johnson & the American Dream,                   
drawing on her conversations with the late president. This 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 Sox locker room.             
She consulted on and appeared in Ken Burns' 1994 documentary Baseball.                       
                                                                                             
Goodwin won the Pulitzer Prize 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 College in 1998.                                               
                                                                                             
Goodwin won the 2005 Lincoln Prize (for best book about the American Civil War)             
for Team of Rivals, a book about Abraham Lincoln's Presidential Cabinet. She is             
currently a member of the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission advisory board.           
                                                                                             
In 1975, Kearns married Richard N. Goodwin, who had worked in the Johnson and               
Kennedy administration as an adviser and a speechwriter. They have three sons,               
Richard, Michael and Joseph. As of 2007, the Goodwins live in Concord,                       
Massachusetts.                                                                               
                                                                                             
Goodwin revealed in her contributions to Ken Burns' award-winning documentary               
film Baseball her life-long support of both the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston             
Red Sox.