Doris Kearns Goodwin Speech

Tuesday February 7, 2012

    Tonight I went to see Doris Kearns Goodwin give a speech in Crimi Auditorium.  Our Problems In History class was the only Aurora University class present, so I felt a little more privileged than others…  There were a lot of older people at the event.  I do not know if these were political figures from the community or just older people interested in a free and fun event.  One of my other professors said that there would be many political figures from the Aurora area present, but I could not really tell because I don’t know what any of them look like.  All in all, the auditorium was packed!  There were many people standing all around the back and people were packing in as best they could. 
    The majority of the class sat together, which was nice.  I was actually surprised to learn that Doris Kearns Goodwin was very popular and has written so many books.  I had never heard of her before, so I did some research prior to going to the speech.  She has written several books, is a political commenter, and has worked with several presidents and within the government for a long time.  Anywho, the topic of her speech (from what I got out of it) was the power of storytelling and that history is full of amazing stories.  Goodwin was actually a good story-teller.  She had note cards, but rarely used them because she was talking about something that she was very educated in, her life and the lives of two great presidents - Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon B. Johnson.  She also touched on other presidents such as Obama, Clinton, Bush, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.  She incorporated several appropriately timed jokes into her speech.
    When talking about Lincoln she made it a point to say that her had less than twelve months of formal schooling in his entire life, but he loved to read and loved education so much that he often taught himself.  Lincoln had a lot of sorrow in his life - his mother and sister died when he was quite young.  Lincoln wanted to be remembered by future generations, so he studied law at night and worked during the days and soon became a politician.  Even though he lost many elections, he never gave up.
    Switching to another president, Goodwin began talking about FDR.  She said that his struggle with polio left him more focused and less smug.  Goodwin talked about how FDR was working on the war front of WWII while Eleanor was focused on the home front.  Even though Goodwin has never written a novel about a First Lady, she had many short stories about Eleanor Roosevelt.  Eleanor said we should help to strengthen democracy at home before working for it in other places in the world.  She also fought for African Americans and women to gain factory jobs on productions lines because so many men were away at war.  This helped to greatly increase wartime production!  Goodwin said that both Lincoln and FDR encouraged people and praised people a lot, even if the person had nothing to do with the job well done.  Also, both men never lost their tempers, which is an excellent quality in a president.  FDR stayed calm during the attacks on Pearl Harbor and Lincoln during the Civil War.
    Goodwin also talked about Lyndon B. Johnson.  It was slightly confusing to me because she jumped around quickly when talking about several different presidents.  I found it funny, however, that Goodwin herself was an anit-Vietnam supporter, but ended up working for the President.  It sounded to me like she sold out her beliefs for a job, but then again I don’t know the full story or what she did for the president.  Mrs. Goodwin had several stories from her time working with L.B. Johnson.  She said that during her time with Johnson he signed three great bills, but the Vietnam War destroyed his reputation and legacy.  She told many jokes that Johnson told her and she said that humor is lacking in politics today because everyone is high strung and always busy. 
    Doris Kearns Goodwin ended her speech by talking about her love of history.  Her passion started at a young age because her father always asked her to record Dodgers baseball games for him then tell him about the games when he got home from work.  She noticed that she got more attention from her father when she told the game like a story and used many details.  This activity helped her learn how to become an excellent story-teller, which she spun into a successful writing career.  Goodwin says that she will always be grateful for her love of history.
    After the speech had concluded questions were asked.  There were only a few questions asked because she went into great detail answering them, so time was quickly up.  One of the most interesting question to me was about how she conducts her research.  Goodwin says that she gathers secondary and primary resources then puts them all in chronological order.  She said it took her over ten years to write her book about Lincoln because there was so much information to gather and organize.  From this point she started talking about how computers make her research easier because all information is stored and easily retrieved.  This brought her to an interesting point:  future historians will have a very difficult time gathering information because today everything is technology based.  Her research is done by looking at letters, journals, and articles, but today everything is done with computers and no one keeps journals or hand-writes letters anymore.  This will make doing research on the 21st century very difficult.  For this reason, she prefers to write about the earlier centuries.  I really wanted to ask her a question (if she ever considers public opinions, songs, and movies in her research), but I was very nervous about talking out loud because my nose was super stuffed up and my throat was all swollen and cracked (I hate colds & the flu!).  I wanted to ask her this question because I had a class in high school that was about history, but we looked at songs and movies from particular events in history to get a better insight.  Songs like “Born in the U.S.A” by Bruce Springsteen and cadences from soldiers were interesting to me.  Altogether, I thought the speech was very insightful and interesting and it makes me want to read one of her books even more, which is great because I have to do a book review on one of them for my class!  It is always enjoyable to say that you have seen a successful author/historian in person!