Debby Applegate is an American historian and biographer. She is the author of The Most Famous Man in America

The Most Famous Man in America

The Most Famous Man in America is a biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate. Applegate received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for this book.-External links:* *...

: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher

Henry Ward Beecher

Henry Ward Beecher was a prominent Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist, and speaker in the mid to late 19th century...

, for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography

Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography

The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography has been presented since 1917 for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.-1910s:* 1917: Julia Ward Howe by Laura E...

.

Biography

Born in Eugene, Oregon

Eugene, Oregon

Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...

, Applegate grew up in Clackamas

Clackamas, Oregon

Clackamas was a census-designated place in Clackamas County, Oregon, United States. The population was 5,177 at the 2000 census. It is a suburb of Portland, Oregon.It is the location of Camp Withycombe, a military base...

, Oregon graduating from Clackamas High School

Clackamas High School

Clackamas High School is a public high school located in Clackamas, Oregon. The school itself was built in 2002, replacing an older, smaller building built in 1957 which is now Alder Creek Middle School, and starting the 2010-2011 school year the campus includes the former building of Sunrise...

 in 1985. She graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College

Amherst College

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

 in 1989 and earned a Ph.D. in American Studies

American studies

American studies or American civilization is an interdisciplinary field dealing with the study of the United States. It traditionally incorporates the study of history, literature, and critical theory, but also includes fields as diverse as law, art, the media, film, religious studies, urban...

 from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in 1998.

Applegate has taught American History at Yale and Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

, and master classes on writing biography and memoir at Marymount Manhattan College

Marymount Manhattan College

Marymount Manhattan College is an urban, coeducational, independent, private, liberal arts college located in Manhattan, New York City, New York with a focus in performing arts. The mission of the College is to educate a socially and economically diverse student body by fostering intellectual...

 in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

, the Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

, the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal among other publications. She serves as a trustee on the governing boards of The New Haven Review, the Harriet Beecher Stowe House

Harriet Beecher Stowe House (Hartford, Connecticut)

The Harriet Beecher Stowe House is a historic house in Hartford, Connecticut that was once the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Stowe lived in this house for the last 23 years of her life...

, the Yale Summer Cabaret, and the Friends of the Amherst College Library. She served as the first, interim, president of Biographers International Organization (BIO), a professional association for biographers.

Applegate is married to Bruce Tulgan

Bruce Tulgan

Bruce L. Tulgan is the author of numerous books including It's Okay to Manage Your Boss , Not Everyone Gets a Trophy , It's Okay to be the Boss , and Managing Generation X . Since founding the management training firm RainmakerThinking, Inc...

, an expert on generational change in the workplace and the author of It's OK To Be The Boss.

External links

• Excerpt from Chapter One of The Most Famous Man in America -- Beecher's childhood in Litchfield, Connecticut.
• The Most Famous Man in America (official website)
• Review of The Most Famous Man in America on NPR's Fresh Air, June 16, 2007
• Complete List of Pulitzer Prize Winners for Biography or Autobiography
• Michael Kazin, "The Gospel of Love," The New York Times Book Review, July 16, 2006, p. 1 -- review of The Most Famous Man in America.
• Biographers International Organization (BIO) (official website)