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Boston Globe
30-01-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
William E. Leuchtenburg, scholar of FDR and the presidency, dies at 102
Like his contemporaries Richard Hofstadter, Edmund S. Morgan, John M. Blum, and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. — a lifelong friend — Dr. Leuchtenburg shaped America's conception of its past during the prosperous 1950s and '60s. His orientation was broadly liberal and internationalist, though he anticipated and responded to criticisms of Roosevelt from the New Left and from the ascendant conservative movement. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The work generally regarded as his masterpiece is 'Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940,' published in 1963, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize by Columbia University and the Francis Parkman Prize by the Society of American Historians. Advertisement 'He took an office which had lost much of its prestige and power in the previous 12 years and gave it an importance which went well beyond what even Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson had done,' Dr. Leuchtenburg wrote, chronicling the enormous growth of the federal government under Franklin Roosevelt, his innovative use of radio and newspaper reporters to communicate his message, and his ability to make Americans feel 'the kind of trust they would normally express for a warm and understanding father who comforted them in their grief or safeguarded them from harm.' Dr. Leuchtenburg did not brush aside the many problems of the New Deal: It failed to crush unemployment — only America's entry into World War II in 1941 would do that — and it favored farmers, industrial workers, and technocrats while excluding powerless groups including sharecroppers, the urban poor, and most African Americans. But he found that the New Deal — with its spirit of experimentation and pragmatism, and its orientation away from 19th-century individualism and toward collective action — helped save capitalism, and perhaps democracy itself. Advertisement Central to that achievement was Roosevelt. 'Roosevelt's importance lay not in his talents as a campaigner or a manipulator,' Dr. Leuchtenburg wrote. 'It lay rather in his ability to arouse the country and, more specifically, the men who served under him, by his breezy encouragement of experimentation, by his hopefulness, and — a word that would have embarrassed some of his lieutenants — by his idealism.' His other major books include 'The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932' (1958), which traces the United States' transformation from an agrarian, moralistic, isolationist nation into an industrial, liberal, and engaged power involved in foreign affairs despite itself; and 'The Supreme Court Reborn: The Constitutional Revolution in the Age of Roosevelt' (1995), about the events surrounding the 1937 constitutional crisis set off by Roosevelt's effort to expand the court to as many as 15 justices. That plan was ultimately defeated, but only after the court shifted its jurisprudence to be more open to legislation regulating business activities. William Edward Leuchtenburg was born in New York City on Sept. 28, 1922. His father, William, was a German American post office worker; his mother, Lauretta C. (McNamara) Leuchtenburg, had emigrated from Ireland as an infant. The younger William's fascination with Washington came early: At age 12, he rode a Greyhound bus for nine hours to visit the White House, the Capitol, and the recently built Supreme Court building. He attended Cornell University, partly on scholarships he had won. At Cornell, he got a job cleaning test tubes for 30 cents an hour (a little under $7 today), via the National Youth Administration, part of the alphabet soup of agencies established under the New Deal. After graduating in 1943, he enrolled in Columbia, where he received his doctorate in 1951. Advertisement Dr. Leuchtenburg taught for three decades at Columbia and then for two more at the University of North Carolina before he was given emeritus status there. He was never confined to the ivory tower. He was a New England field representative from 1945 to 1946 for a national council seeking to permanently ban racial discrimination in federal employment; served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1952; and joined other historians in marching to Montgomery, Ala., with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965. He was active in Americans for Democratic Action, the liberal and anti-communist group that Eleanor Roosevelt helped found. He also found time to serve as an election analyst for NBC News, first with anchors Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, then with John Chancellor. And he joined lawsuits to stop President Nixon from destroying the Watergate tapes and to keep Secretary of State Henry Kissinger from sequestering transcripts of official phone conversations. Dr. Leuchtenburg selected the quotations carved into the granite of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, which opened in 1997. He contributed to Ken Burns's documentaries on Prohibition, the Civil War and baseball. 'I'm going to cry talking about it, but it's just this gigantic and unfillable hole,' Burns said of Dr. Leuchtenburg's death. 'He taught us well, though. He's imparted not just facts, but attitudes and relationships and methodologies that we'll save.' Advertisement Dr. Leuchtenburg's first marriage, to Jean McIntire, ended in divorce. He married Jean Anne Williams in the mid-1980s. In addition to his wife, he leaves three sons from his first marriage, Christopher, Joshua, and Thomas; a stepson, Christopher K. Williams; six grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Dr. Leuchtenburg published 'In the Shadow of FDR,' about Roosevelt's legacy for future presidents, in 1983, and he updated the book several times, taking it up to the administration of President Barack Obama. His last book, 'Patriot Presidents: From George Washington to John Quincy Adams,' came out in July. He found that those successors did not quite match up. 'A millworker in South Carolina once said, 'Franklin Roosevelt is the only president we've ever had who understands that my boss is a son of a gun,'' Dr. Leuchtenburg said in an interview with C-SPAN in 2010, during the Obama administration. 'Obama has for some reason not been able to convey that same sense, that he knows what it is to be down and out, to be unemployed month after month after month with no prospect in sight.' He was also critical of President Trump in early 2017, only weeks after Trump's inauguration. 'We really have no precedent for a chief executive with this sort of temperament — so careless about his statements, so quick to take offense,' Dr. Leuchtenburg told the North Carolina website NC Newsline. 'There is concern not just here at home but abroad, as I know from letters I'm getting from historians, particularly in Europe. There is great alarm about how irresponsible the man seems.' 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Politico
30-01-2025
- Business
- Politico
Presidential historian William Leuchtenburg dies at 102
NEW YORK — William E. Leuchtenburg, a prize-winning historian widely admired for his authoritative writings on the U.S. presidency and as the reigning scholar on Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, has died at 102. Leuchtenburg died Tuesday at his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, according to his son, Joshua A. Leuchtenburg, who cited no specific cause of death. A professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina and a published author for more than 70 years, William E. Leuchtenburg was praised for his encyclopedic knowledge and rigorous, but accessible style. He received some of the top awards given to historians, including the Parkman and Bancroft prizes, was a political analyst for CBS and NBC and consulted on several of Ken Burns' PBS documentaries. In 2008, he was given the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Award for 'Distinguished Writing' of American history. Leuchtenburg's notable books include 'Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal' and 'The Perils of Prosperity,' a history of the U.S. from World War I to the peak of the Great Depression. Although politically liberal, his expertise called upon by aides to Lyndon Johnson and other Democratic politicians, he was as willing to point out the New Deal's disappointments as its successes: His scholarship was closely studied by younger FDR historians, from Jonathan Alter to Burns collaborator Geoffrey Ward, who dedicated the 2014 book 'The Roosevelts' to Leuchtenburg. And he was otherwise known for his generosity with Ward and others who sought his expertise. His most influential work was likely the Bancroft-winning 'Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal,' published in 1963. Leuchtenburg found that the impact of FDR's vast and unprecedented response to the Depression was limited by political calculation, especially the president's reluctance to challenge racial segregation in the South, and that 'It never demonstrated that it could achieve prosperity' until the U.S. entered World War II. But he also credited the New Deal with transforming the role of federal government and Roosevelt with reinventing the presidency, using the young medium of radio to convince millions that he knew them personally. 'Nothing is glossed over at all,' the New York Times' Charles Poore wrote upon the book's release. 'You live here through years of tumult and disaster, triumph and ineptitude and daring.' Leuchtenburg's books on Roosevelt covered his presidency and beyond. 'In the Shadow of FDR,' published in 1983 and periodically updated, demonstrated how presidents from Truman to George W. Bush attempted to shun and/or embrace Roosevelt's legacy. Leuchtenburg wrote of Roosevelt's immediate successor, Harry Truman, gesturing in the White House to a portrait of FDR and admitting, 'I'm trying to do what he would like.' He noted the frustration of Republican Dwight Eisenhower and Democrat John F. Kennedy in being compared, unfavorably, to Roosevelt, and how Jimmy Carter began his 1976 presidential run with a speech in Warm Springs, Georgia, where FDR often stayed. At the time of his death, Leuchtenburg was working on an edition that would have included the administration of Joe Biden, who kept a portrait of Roosevelt in the Oval Office. The 2005 book 'The White House Looks South' featured sections on Roosevelt, Truman and Lyndon Johnson and told of how each embraced or distanced themselves from the South. Roosevelt, a native of New York, spent so much time in Warm Springs that the state's governor referred to him as our 'fellow-Georgian.' Johnson, a Texan, alternately identified himself as a Southerner or a Westerner, depending on the intended audience. In the prologue, Leuchtenburg fondly noted his own journey, remembering visits to baseball spring training camps in Florida, marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, and never failing on New Year's Day to partake of black-eyed peas and collard greens, 'even if they are eaten with a grimace.' 'In sum, I am in, but not of, the South,' he concluded. He was a popular and rigorous educator — sometimes referred to as 'The Big L' — who taught at Smith College, Harvard University and Columbia University before settling at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early 1980s. A former president of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, he held such stature that he contributed to later editions of 'The Growth of the American Republic,' a standard college textbook originally written by Henry Steele Commager and Samuel Eliot Morison. Historians studying under him ranged from Allan Brandt to Howard Zinn. Leuchtenburg was married twice, most recently to Jean Anne Leuchtenburg, and had three children.
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Presidential historian William Leuchtenburg dies at 102
NEW YORK — William E. Leuchtenburg, a prize-winning historian widely admired for his authoritative writings on the U.S. presidency and as the reigning scholar on Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, has died at 102. Leuchtenburg died Tuesday at his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, according to his son, Joshua A. Leuchtenburg, who cited no specific cause of death. A professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina and a published author for more than 70 years, William E. Leuchtenburg was praised for his encyclopedic knowledge and rigorous, but accessible style. He received some of the top awards given to historians, including the Parkman and Bancroft prizes, was a political analyst for CBS and NBC and consulted on several of Ken Burns' PBS documentaries. In 2008, he was given the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Award for 'Distinguished Writing' of American history. Leuchtenburg's notable books include 'Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal' and 'The Perils of Prosperity,' a history of the U.S. from World War I to the peak of the Great Depression. Although politically liberal, his expertise called upon by aides to Lyndon Johnson and other Democratic politicians, he was as willing to point out the New Deal's disappointments as its successes: His scholarship was closely studied by younger FDR historians, from Jonathan Alter to Burns collaborator Geoffrey Ward, who dedicated the 2014 book 'The Roosevelts' to Leuchtenburg. And he was otherwise known for his generosity with Ward and others who sought his expertise. His most influential work was likely the Bancroft-winning 'Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal,' published in 1963. Leuchtenburg found that the impact of FDR's vast and unprecedented response to the Depression was limited by political calculation, especially the president's reluctance to challenge racial segregation in the South, and that 'It never demonstrated that it could achieve prosperity' until the U.S. entered World War II. But he also credited the New Deal with transforming the role of federal government and Roosevelt with reinventing the presidency, using the young medium of radio to convince millions that he knew them personally. 'Nothing is glossed over at all,' the New York Times' Charles Poore wrote upon the book's release. 'You live here through years of tumult and disaster, triumph and ineptitude and daring.' Leuchtenburg's books on Roosevelt covered his presidency and beyond. 'In the Shadow of FDR,' published in 1983 and periodically updated, demonstrated how presidents from Truman to George W. Bush attempted to shun and/or embrace Roosevelt's legacy. Leuchtenburg wrote of Roosevelt's immediate successor, Harry Truman, gesturing in the White House to a portrait of FDR and admitting, 'I'm trying to do what he would like.' He noted the frustration of Republican Dwight Eisenhower and Democrat John F. Kennedy in being compared, unfavorably, to Roosevelt, and how Jimmy Carter began his 1976 presidential run with a speech in Warm Springs, Georgia, where FDR often stayed. At the time of his death, Leuchtenburg was working on an edition that would have included the administration of Joe Biden, who kept a portrait of Roosevelt in the Oval Office. The 2005 book 'The White House Looks South' featured sections on Roosevelt, Truman and Lyndon Johnson and told of how each embraced or distanced themselves from the South. Roosevelt, a native of New York, spent so much time in Warm Springs that the state's governor referred to him as our 'fellow-Georgian.' Johnson, a Texan, alternately identified himself as a Southerner or a Westerner, depending on the intended audience. In the prologue, Leuchtenburg fondly noted his own journey, remembering visits to baseball spring training camps in Florida, marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, and never failing on New Year's Day to partake of black-eyed peas and collard greens, 'even if they are eaten with a grimace.' 'In sum, I am in, but not of, the South,' he concluded. He was a popular and rigorous educator — sometimes referred to as 'The Big L' — who taught at Smith College, Harvard University and Columbia University before settling at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early 1980s. A former president of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, he held such stature that he contributed to later editions of 'The Growth of the American Republic,' a standard college textbook originally written by Henry Steele Commager and Samuel Eliot Morison. Historians studying under him ranged from Allan Brandt to Howard Zinn. Leuchtenburg was married twice, most recently to Jean Anne Leuchtenburg, and had three children.
The Independent
29-01-2025
- Business
- The Independent
William E. Leuchtenburg, eminent presidential historian and Ken Burns consultant, dies at 102
William E. Leuchtenburg, a prize-winning historian widely admired for his authoritative writings on the U.S. presidency and as the reigning scholar on Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, has died at 102. Leuchtenburg died Tuesday at his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, according to his son, Joshua A. Leuchtenburg, who cited no specific cause of death. A professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina and a published author for more than 70 years, William E. Leuchtenburg was praised for his encyclopedic knowledge and rigorous, but accessible style. He received some of the top awards given to historians, including the Parkman and Bancroft prizes, was a political analyst for CBS and NBC and consulted on several of Ken Burns ' PBS documentaries. In 2008, he was given the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Award for "Distinguished Writing" of American history. Leuchtenburg's notable books include "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal" and "The Perils of Prosperity," a history of the U.S. from World War I to the peak of the Great Depression. Although politically liberal, his expertise called upon by aides to Lyndon Johnson and other Democratic politicians, he was as willing to point out the New Deal's disappointments as its successes: His scholarship was closely studied by younger FDR historians, from Jonathan Alter to Burns collaborator Geoffrey Ward, who dedicated the 2014 book 'The Roosevelts' to Leuchtenburg. And he was otherwise known for his generosity with Ward and others who sought his expertise. His most influential work was likely the Bancroft-winning 'Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal,' published in 1963. Leuchtenburg found that the impact of FDR's vast and unprecedented response to the Depression was limited by political calculation, especially the president's reluctance to challenge racial segregation in the South, and that 'It never demonstrated that it could achieve prosperity" until the U.S. entered World War II. But he also credited the New Deal with transforming the role of federal government and Roosevelt with reinventing the presidency, using the young medium of radio to convince millions that he knew them personally. 'Nothing is glossed over at all,' The New York Times' Charles Poore wrote upon the book's release. 'You live here through years of tumult and disaster, triumph and ineptitude and daring.' Leuchtenburg's books on Roosevelt covered his presidency and beyond. "In the Shadow of FDR," published in 1983 and periodically updated, demonstrated how presidents from Truman to George W. Bush attempted to shun and/or embrace Roosevelt's legacy. Leuchtenburg wrote of Roosevelt's immediate successor, Harry Truman, gesturing in the White House to a portrait of FDR and admitting, "I'm trying to do what he would like." He noted the frustration of Republican Dwight Eisenhower and Democrat John F. Kennedy in being compared, unfavorably, to Roosevelt, and how Jimmy Carter began his 1976 presidential run with a speech in Warm Springs, Georgia, where FDR often stayed. At the time of his death, Leuchtenburg was working on an edition that would have included the administration of Joe Biden, who kept a portrait of Roosevelt in the Oval Office. The 2005 book "The White House Looks South" featured sections on Roosevelt, Truman and Lyndon Johnson and told of how each embraced or distanced themselves from the South. Roosevelt, a native of New York, spent so much time in Warm Springs that the state's governor referred to him as our "fellow-Georgian." Johnson, a Texan, alternately identified himself as a Southerner or a Westerner, depending on the intended audience. In the prologue, Leuchtenburg fondly noted his own journey, remembering visits to baseball spring training camps in Florida, marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, and never failing on New Year's Day to partake of black-eyed peas and collard greens, "even if they are eaten with a grimace." "In sum, I am in, but not of, the South," he concluded. He was a popular and rigorous educator — sometimes referred to as 'The Big L' — who taught at Smith College, Harvard University and Columbia University before settling at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early 1980s. A former president of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, he held such stature that he contributed to later editions of "The Growth of the American Republic," a standard college textbook originally written by Henry Steele Commager and Samuel Eliot Morison. Historians studying under him ranged from Allan Brandt to Howard Zinn. Leuchtenburg was married twice, most recently to Jean Anne Leuchtenburg, and had three children. A postal clerk's son born in New York City in 1922, William Edward Leuchtenburg was so fascinated by politics that at age 12, he raised money tutoring neighborhood kids to fund a nine-hour bus ride to Washington, where he would recall his "wide-eyed" tour of the White House and the "brand-new marble palace of the U.S. Supreme Court." His affinity for Roosevelt was lifelong and personal. When he was 10, he sat by the radio and counted delegates as FDR was elected to his first term as president. He was able to afford college with help from a job found through a New Deal program, the National Youth Administration. Leuchtenburg graduated from Cornell University, received a master's degree and a doctorate from Columbia and worked for a civil rights lobby and other political organizations before deciding to focus on history. His first book, 'Flood Control Politics,' came out in 1953, followed five years later by 'The Perils of Prosperity.' In recent years, Leuchtenburg wrote a short, critical biography of FDR's predecessor, Herbert Hoover, and the 900-page 'The American President: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton.' He continued to work every morning and, at age 101, completed 'Patriot Presidents,' the first of a planned multi-volume history that he acknowledged in the book's preface 'may be too ambitious.'
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
William E. Leuchtenburg, eminent presidential historian and Ken Burns consultant, dies at 102
NEW YORK (AP) — William E. Leuchtenburg, a prize-winning historian widely admired for his authoritative writings on the U.S. presidency and as the reigning scholar on Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, has died at 102. Leuchtenburg died Tuesday at his home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, according to his son, Joshua A. Leuchtenburg, who cited no specific cause of death. A professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina and a published author for more than 70 years, William E. Leuchtenburg was praised for his encyclopedic knowledge and rigorous, but accessible style. He received some of the top awards given to historians, including the Parkman and Bancroft prizes, was a political analyst for CBS and NBC and consulted on several of Ken Burns' PBS documentaries. In 2008, he was given the Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Award for "Distinguished Writing" of American history. Leuchtenburg's notable books include "Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal" and "The Perils of Prosperity," a history of the U.S. from World War I to the peak of the Great Depression. Although politically liberal, his expertise called upon by aides to Lyndon Johnson and other Democratic politicians, he was as willing to point out the New Deal's disappointments as its successes: His scholarship was closely studied by younger FDR historians, from Jonathan Alter to Burns collaborator Geoffrey Ward, who dedicated the 2014 book 'The Roosevelts' to Leuchtenburg. And he was otherwise known for his generosity with Ward and others who sought his expertise. His most influential work was likely the Bancroft-winning 'Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.' Leuchtenburg found that the impact of FDR's vast and unprecedented response to the Depression was limited by political calculation, especially the president's reluctance to challenge racial segregation in the South, and that 'It never demonstrated that it could achieve prosperity" until the U.S. entered World War II. But he also credited the New Deal with transforming the role of federal government and Roosevelt with reinventing the presidency, using the young medium of radio to convince millions that he knew them personally. 'Nothing is glossed over at all,' The New York Times' Charles Poore wrote upon the book's release, in 1964. 'You live here through years of tumult and disaster, triumph and ineptitude and daring.' Leuchtenburg's books on Roosevelt covered his presidency and beyond. "In the Shadow of FDR," published in 1983 and periodically updated, demonstrated how presidents from Truman to George W. Bush attempted to shun and/or embrace Roosevelt's legacy. Leuchtenburg wrote of Roosevelt's immediate successor, Harry Truman, gesturing in the White House to a portrait of FDR and admitting, "I'm trying to do what he would like." He noted the frustration of Republican Dwight Eisenhower and Democrat John F. Kennedy in being compared, unfavorably, to Roosevelt, and how Jimmy Carter began his 1976 presidential run with a speech in Warm Springs, Georgia, where FDR often stayed. The 2005 book "The White House Looks South" featured sections on Roosevelt, Truman and Lyndon Johnson and told of how each embraced or distanced themselves from the South. Roosevelt, a native of New York, spent so much time in Warm Springs that the state's governor referred to him as our "fellow-Georgian." Johnson, a Texan, alternately identified himself as a Southerner or a Westerner, depending on the intended audience. In the prologue, Leuchtenburg fondly noted his own journey, remembering visits to baseball spring training camps in Florida, marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, and never failing on New Year's Day to partake of black-eyed peas and collard greens, "even if they are eaten with a grimace." "In sum, I am in, but not of, the South," he concluded. He was a popular and rigorous educator — sometimes referred to as 'The Big L' — who taught at Smith College, Harvard University and Columbia University before settling at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early 1980s. A former president of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, he held such stature that he contributed to later editions of "The Growth of the American Republic," a standard college textbook originally written by Henry Steele Commager and Samuel Eliot Morison. Historians studying under him ranged from Allan Brandt to Howard Zinn. Leuchtenburg was married twice, most recently to Jean Anne Leuchtenburg, and had three children. A postal clerk's son born in New York City in 1922, William Edward Leuchtenburg was so fascinated by politics that at age 12, he raised money tutoring neighborhood kids to fund a nine-hour bus ride to Washington, where he would recall his "wide-eyed" tour of the White House and the "brand-new marble palace of the U.S. Supreme Court." His affinity for Roosevelt was lifelong and personal. When he was 10, he sat by the radio and counted delegates as FDR was elected to his first term as president. He was able to afford college with help from a job found through a New Deal program, the National Youth Administration. Leuchtenburg graduated from Cornell University, received a master's degree and a doctorate from Columbia and worked for a civil rights lobby and other political organizations before deciding to focus on history. His first book, 'Flood Control Politics,' came out in 1953, followed five years later by 'The Perils of Prosperity.' In recent years, Leuchtenburg wrote a short, critical biography of FDR's predecessor, Herbert Hoover, and the 900-page 'The American President: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton.' He continued to work every morning and, at age 101, completed 'Patriot Presidents,' the first of a planned multi-volume history that he acknowledged in the book's preface 'may be too ambitious.'
