David Herbert Donald - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Career

Majoring in history and sociology, Donald earned his bachelor degree from Millsaps College

Millsaps College

Millsaps College is a private liberal arts college located in Jackson, Mississippi. Founded in 1890, the college is recognized as one of the country's best private colleges dedicated to undergraduate teaching and educating the whole individual. Affiliated with the United Methodist Church, Millsaps...

in Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson, Mississippi

Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...

. He earned his PhD in 1946 under the eminent, leading Lincoln scholar, James G. Randall

James G. Randall

James G. Randall was an American historian, specializing on Abraham Lincoln and the era of the American Civil War. He taught at the University of Illinois, , where David Herbert Donald was one of his students and continued his traditions. Born in Indiana, he took a B.A. degree from Butler College...

at the University of Illinois

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...

. Randall as a mentor had a big influence on Donald's life and career, and encouraged his protege to write his dissertation on Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon. The dissertation eventually became his first book, Lincoln's Herndon, published in 1948. The effect Randall had on Donald was later illustrated by the fact that he gave his only son the middle name Randall in honor of his former mentor. After graduating, he taught at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins University

The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

and, from 1973, Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. He also taught at Smith College

Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...

, the University of North Wales, Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

, University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

and served as Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University. At Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and Harvard he trained dozens of graduate students including Jean H. Baker, William J. Cooper, Jr., Michael Holt, Irwin Unger

Irwin Unger

Irwin Unger is an American historian and academic specializing in economic history, the history of the 1960s, and the history of the Gilded Age. He earned his Ph.D...

, and Ari Hoogenboom.

He received the Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

twice (1961 and 1988), several honorary degrees, and served as president of the Southern Historical Association. Donald also served on the editorial board for the Papers of Abraham Lincoln

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln

]The Papers of Abraham Lincoln is a long-term documentary editing project dedicated to identifying, imaging, and publishing all documents written by or to Abraham...

.

David H. Donald was the Charles Warren Professor of American History (emeritus

Emeritus

Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...

from 1991) at Harvard University

Harvard University

. He wrote over thirty books, including well received biographies of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

, Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Clayton Wolfe was a major American novelist of the early 20th century.Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels, plus many short stories, dramatic works and novellas. He is known for mixing highly original, poetic, rhapsodic, and impressionistic prose with autobiographical writing...

and Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...

. He specialized in the Civil War and Reconstruction periods, and in the history of the South.

Works

Donald is best known for his biography of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

, which has been praised by the historian Eric Foner

Eric Foner

Eric Foner is an American historian. On the faculty of the Department of History at Columbia University since 1982, he writes extensively on political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African American biography, Reconstruction, and historiography...

as the best biography of Lincoln. It was praised by President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

who called it "one of the best biographies on any person in politics." In addition, he wrote Pulitzer Prize

Pulitzer Prize

-winning biographies of politician Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner

and writer Thomas Wolfe

Thomas Wolfe

. Weaving in a wealth of new historical material, he also revised his former mentor's classic textbook, Civil War and Reconstruction (1961, 2001).

Donald's first book Lincoln's Herndon (1948) was a biography of William Herndon

William Herndon

William Herndon may refer to:*William Herndon , officer and explorer in the United States Navy*William Herndon , law partner and biographer of Abraham Lincoln...

, the junior partner in Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

's law firm in Springfield, Illinois. Herndon was Lincoln's trusted aide until Lincoln became president and, in 1889 published a highly controversial biography of Lincoln based on numerous interviews. Donald concluded that Herndon, "stands, in the backward glance of history, as myth-maker and truth-teller." In his introduction, Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...

, the poet and Lincoln biographer, hailed Donald's book as the answer to scholars' prayers: “When is someone going to do the life of Bill Herndon. Isn't it about time? Now the question is out.” David M. Potter

David M. Potter

David M. Potter was an American historian of the South. He was born in Augusta, Georgia, and graduated from Emory University in 1932. At Yale he worked with Ulrich Bonnell Phillips. His earned his Ph.D. in 1940 and published Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis in 1942...

, whose own credentials as a Lincoln scholar gave his words authority, said Donald's biography of Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner

portrayed, "Sumner as a man with acute psychological inadequacies” and exposed Sumner's "facade of pompous rectitude." Donald's evenhanded approach to Sumner, Potter concluded, was a model for biographers working with a difficult subject. "If it does not make Sumner attractive [the book] certainly makes him understandable."

Donald argues that the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

was a needless war caused or hastened by the fanaticism of people like Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner

; he admires Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Personal

Donald lived in Lincoln, Massachusetts

Lincoln, Massachusetts

Lincoln is a town in the historic area of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,362 at the 2010 census, including residents of Hanscom Air Force Base that live within town limits...

, with his wife Aida DiPace Donald, who is also a historian. He died of heart failure in Boston on May 17, 2009. Donald is survived by his son, Bruce Randall Donald, and his wife.

Books

Lincoln's Herndon (1948)
Divided We Fought: A Pictorial History of the War, 1861—1865 (1952)
Editor, Inside Lincoln's Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase. (1954)
Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era (1947, 2nd edition 1961)(ISBN 0-679-72310-2)
Editor, Why the North Won the Civil War (1962) (ISBN 0-02-031660-7)
Civil War and Reconstruction (1961; 2001) (ISBN 0-393-97427-8), 2001 edition with Jean H. Baker & Michael F. Holt; 1961 edition with James G. Randall.
Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (1960), prize-winning scholarly biography to 1860; Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (1970), biography from 1861.
Politics of Reconstruction, 1863-—1867 (1965)
Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...

(2003) (ISBN 0-674-00869-3)
Lincoln (1996) ISBN 0-684-80846-3
Lincoln at Home: Two Glimpses of Abraham Lincoln's Domestic Life (1999) ISBN 978-0-912308-77-7
We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends (2003) (ISBN 0-7432-5468-6)
Editor with Aida DiPace Donald, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Volumes 1 and 2, January 1820 - September 1829, Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...

.

Sources

Barnes & Noble
Paul Goodman, "David Donald's Charles Sumner Reconsidered" in The New England Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3. (Sep., 1964), pp. 373–387.online at JSTOR
Ari Hoogenboom, “David Herbert Donald: A Celebration, ” in A Master's Due: Essays in Honor of David Herbert Donald, ed. William J. Cooper, Jr., et al.(Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 1—15.

External links

David Herbert Donald, Daily Telegraph obituary

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