David Herbert Donald
Born	October 1, 1920 Goodman, Mississippi, U.S.
Died	May 17, 2009(2009-05-17) (aged 88) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education	Millsaps College University of Illinois
Occupation	Historian
Known for	Biography of Abraham Lincoln
Awards	Pulitzer Prize for Biography (1961, 1988)

David Herbert Donald (October 1, 1920 – May 17, 2009) was an American historian, best known for his 1995 biography ofAbraham Lincoln. He twice won thePulitzer Prize for Biography, for books aboutThomas Wolfe andCharles Sumner; he published more than 30 books on United States political and literary figures and the history of the American South.

David Herbert Donald was born inGoodman, Mississippi, a town in the center ofHolmes County. The county's western border is formed by theYazoo River and it is part of the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta. Donald's father was a farmer, while his mother was a teacher.^[1]

Majoring inhistory andsociology, Donald earned his bachelor's degree fromMillsaps College inJackson, Mississippi.^[2] After earning a master's degree in history (1942) at theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,^[3] he earned hisPhD in 1946^[2] underJames G. Randall at the same institution. Randall as a mentor influenced Donald's life and career. He encouraged his protégé to write his dissertation onAbraham Lincoln's law partner,William Herndon. Donald adapted and published the dissertation as his first book,Lincoln's Herndon (1948).^[2][1]

After completing his doctorate, Donald taught atColumbia University,Johns Hopkins University and, from 1973 until his retirement in 1991,Harvard University. He also taught atSmith College, theUniversity of North Wales (on aFulbright grant),^[3]Princeton University,University College London and served as Harmsworth Professor of American History atOxford University (1959-60). At Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and Harvard he trained dozens of graduate students, includingHeather Cox Richardson,Jean H. Baker,William J. Cooper Jr., Michael Holt,Irwin Unger,Ari Hoogenboom, andRichard R. John.

Donald's term as president of theSouthern Historical Association began in 1969.^[4] He also served on the editorial board forthe Papers of Abraham Lincoln.^[5]

Donald was the Charles Warren Professor of American History (emeritus from 1991) atHarvard University. He wrote more than thirty books, including well-received biographies ofAbraham Lincoln,Thomas Wolfe andCharles Sumner. He specialized in theAmerican Civil War andReconstruction periods, and in the history of theAmerican South.

Donald received thePulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography twice, in 1961 forCharles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War and in 1988 forLook Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe. He also received several honorary degrees.

Donald received theAmerican Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award in 1997.^[6]

Donald was inducted as a Laureate ofThe Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2008 in the area of Communications and Education.^[7]

In 2000, Donald receivedThe Lincoln Forum'sRichard Nelson Current Award of Achievement.^[8]

Donald marriedAida DiPace in 1955, and their son,Bruce Randall Donald, who became a computer scientist, was born in 1958.^[4] Donald lived inLincoln, Massachusetts, with his wife, who was a historian and author,^[1] and a senior editor and then editor-in-chief at theHarvard University Press.^[9] He died ofheart failure in Boston on May 17, 2009.^[2][1]

In his introduction to Donald's first book,Lincoln's Herndon, a biography of Lincoln's law partner, the poet and Lincoln biographerCarl Sandburg called it 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, a Civil War scholar, said that Donald's biography ofCharles 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."^[10]

Donald's biography of Lincoln "is often considered the best single-volume biography of Lincoln ever."^{[11][better source needed]} HistorianEric Foner said of it "It is the most balanced of the biographies out there. It is not a work of hero worship, nor does it have a prosecutorial brief. He presents Lincoln as a rather passive figure, not at all in charge of the forces raging around him, which is quite accurate."^[1]

• Lincoln'sHerndon (1948)^[12]
• Divided We Fought: A Pictorial History of the War, 1861—1865 (1952)^[13]
• Editor,Inside Lincoln's Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries ofSalmon P. Chase (1954)^[14]
• Lincoln Reconsidered: Essays on the Civil War Era (1956, 2nd ed., 1961, 3rd ed., 2001) Previously published essays. (ISBN 978-0-679-72310-3).^[15]
• Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (1961). Pulitzer Prize-winning scholarly biography to 1860.^[16]
• TheCivil War andReconstruction (1961; 2001) (ISBN 978-0-393-97427-0), 2001 edition withJean H. Baker and Michael F. Holt; 1961 ed. with James G. Randall.^[17]
• Editor,Why the North Won the Civil War (1962) (ISBN 978-0-02-031660-2) (revised ed. 1996).^[18]
• Editor with Aida DiPace Donald,Diary ofCharles Francis Adams, Volumes 1 and 2, January 1820 - September 1829 (1964),Harvard University Press.^[19]
• The Politics of Reconstruction, 1863-1867 (1965)^[20]
• Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (1970). Biography after 1860.^[21]
• Look Homeward: A Life of Thomas Wolfe (1987). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. (ISBN 978-0-316-18952-1).^[22]
• Lincoln (1995)ISBN 978-0-684-80846-8^[23]
• Lincoln at Home: Two Glimpses of Abraham Lincoln's Domestic Life (1999)ISBN 978-0-912308-77-7.^[24]
• We Are Lincoln Men: Abraham Lincoln and His Friends (2003) (ISBN 978-0-7432-5468-7).^[25]

Notes

Bibliography

• Goodman, Paul. "David Donald's Charles Sumner Reconsidered" inThe New England Quarterly, Vol. 37, No. 3. (Sept. 1964), pp. 373–387.online at JSTOR
• Hoogenboom, Ari. "David Herbert Donald: A Celebration," inA Master's Due: Essays in Honor of David Herbert Donald, ed. William J. Cooper, Jr.,et al. (Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 1–15.
• Randall, J. G. (1961).The Divided Union. Boston: Little, Brown.
• Rutland, Robert Allen. "David Herbert Donald," in Robert Allen Rutland, ed.Clio's Favorites: Leading Historians of the United States, 1945-2000, (University of Missouri Press, 2000) pp.35-48.

External videos
Booknotes interview with Donald onLincoln, December 24, 1995,C-SPAN
Presentation by Donald onWe Are Lincoln Men at the Chicago Public Library, November 18, 2003,C-SPAN
Q&A interview with Aida Donald, November 18, 2012,C-SPAN

• Appearances onC-SPAN
  • In Depth interview with Donald, June 2, 2002.
• David Herbert Donald,Daily Telegraph obituary.
• New York Times obituary May 19, 2009.

• 20th-century American biographers
• American male biographers
• 20th-century American historians
• American male non-fiction writers
• Historians of the American Civil War
• Columbia University faculty
• Harvard University Department of History faculty
• Historians of the United States
• Johns Hopkins University faculty
• People from Goodman, Mississippi
• Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners
• Lincoln Prize winners
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni
• 1920 births
• 2009 deaths
• People from Lincoln, Massachusetts
• Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Professors of American History
• 20th-century American male writers

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