David Gaub McCullough was born in thePoint Breeze neighborhood ofPittsburgh, Pennsylvania,[5] to Ruth (née Rankin; 1899–1985) and Christian Hax McCullough (1899–1989) on July 7, 1933.[6] He was ofScots-Irish, German, and English descent.[7][8] He was educated at Linden Avenue Grade School andShady Side Academy in Pittsburgh.[3][4]
One of four sons, McCullough had a "marvelous" childhood with a wide range of interests, including sports and drawing cartoons.[9] McCullough's parents and his grandmother, who read to him often, introduced him to books at an early age.[7] His parents often talked about history, a topic he said should be discussed more often.[7] McCullough "loved school, every day";[9] he contemplated many career choices, ranging from architect, actor, painter, writer, to lawyer, and considered attending medical school for a time.[9]
In 1951, McCullough began attendingYale University.[10] He said that it was a "privilege" to study English at Yale because of faculty members such asJohn O'Hara,John Hersey,Robert Penn Warren, andBrendan Gill.[11][4] McCullough occasionally ate lunch with the Pulitzer Prize–winning[12] novelist and playwrightThornton Wilder.[11] Wilder, said McCullough, taught him that a competent writer maintains "an air of freedom" in the storyline, so that a reader will not anticipate the outcome even if the book is non-fiction.[13][4]
While at Yale, he became a member ofSkull and Bones, thesecret society known for its powerful alumni.[14] He servedapprenticeships atTime andLife magazines, theUnited States Information Agency, andAmerican Heritage magazine,[11] where he enjoyed research. He said: "Once I discovered the endless fascination of doing the research and of doing the writing, I knew I had found what I wanted to do in my life."[11] While attending Yale, McCullough studied Arts and earned his bachelor's degree in English with the intention of becoming a fiction writer or playwright.[7] He graduated with honors inEnglish literature in 1955.[15][16]
After graduation, McCullough moved to New York City, whereSports Illustrated hired him as a trainee in 1956.[9] He later worked as an editor and writer for theUnited States Information Agency in Washington, D.C.[5] After working for twelve years in editing and writing, including a position atAmerican Heritage, McCullough "felt that [he] had reached the point where [he] could attempt something on [his] own."[9][4]
McCullough "had no anticipation that [he] was going to write history, but [he] stumbled upon a story that [he] thought was powerful, exciting, and very worth telling."[9] While working atAmerican Heritage, McCullough wrote in his spare time for three years.[9][17]The Johnstown Flood, a chronicle ofone of the most severe flood disasters in American history, was published in 1968[9] to high praise by critics.[18]John Leonard ofThe New York Times said of McCullough, "We have no better social historian."[18] Despite rough financial times,[10] he decided to become a full-time writer, encouraged by his wife, Rosalee.[9]
People often ask me if I'm working on a book. That's not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It's like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It's almost like hypnosis.[19]
McCullough interviews U.S. PresidentRonald Reagan in 1981
After the success ofThe Johnstown Flood, two new publishers offered him contracts, one to write about theGreat Chicago Fire and another about theSan Francisco earthquake.[20]Simon & Schuster, publisher of his first book, also offered McCullough a contract to write a second book.[10] Trying not to become "Bad News McCullough",[20] he decided to write about a subject showing "people were not always foolish and inept or irresponsible."[20] He remembered the words of his Yale teacher: "[Thornton] Wilder said he got the idea for a book or a play when he wanted to learn about something. Then, he'd check to see if anybody had already done it, and if they hadn't, he'd do it."[10] McCullough decided to write a history of theBrooklyn Bridge, which he had walked across many times.[10] It was published in 1972.[4]
With his next book, McCullough published his second biography,Truman (1992) about the 33rd U.S. president,Harry S. Truman. The book won McCullough his firstPulitzer Prize, in the category of "Best Biography or Autobiography",[1] and his second Francis Parkman Prize. Two years later, the book was adapted asTruman (1995), a television film byHBO, starringGary Sinise as Truman.[10][4]
I think it's important to remember that these men are not perfect. If they were marble gods, what they did wouldn't be so admirable. The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.
Working for the next seven years,[32] McCullough publishedJohn Adams (2001), his third biography about a United States president. One of the fastest-selling non-fiction books in history,[10] the book won McCullough's second Pulitzer Prize for "Best Biography or Autobiography" in 2002.[1] He started it as a book about theAmerican Founding Fathers and back-to-back presidentsJohn Adams andThomas Jefferson, but dropped Jefferson to focus on Adams.[31] HBO adapted it asa seven-part miniseries by the same name.[33] Premiering in 2008, it starredPaul Giamatti in the title role.[33] The DVD version of the miniseries includes the biographical documentaryDavid McCullough: Painting with Words.[34]
McCullough's1776 tells the story of the founding year of the United States, focusing onGeorge Washington, the amateurContinental Army, and other struggles for independence.[32] Because of McCullough's popularity, its initial printing was 1.25 million copies, many more than the average history book.[3] Upon its release, the book was a number one best-seller in the United States.[32] A miniseries adaptation of1776 was rumored.[35]
McCullough considered writing a sequel to1776.[32] However, he signed a contract with Simon & Schuster to do a work about Americans in Paris between 1830 and 1900,The Greater Journey, which was published in 2011.[36][37] The book covers 19th-century Americans, includingMark Twain andSamuel Morse, who migrated to Paris and went on to achieve importance in culture or innovation. Other subjects includeBenjamin Silliman, who had been Morse's science teacher at Yale,Elihu Washburne, theU.S. Ambassador to France during theFranco-Prussian War, andElizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in the United States.[38]
McCullough'sThe Wright Brothers was published in 2015.[39]The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West followed in 2019, the story of the first European American settlers of theNorthwest Territory, a vast American wilderness to which theOhio River was the gateway.[40]
In 1954, McCullough married Rosalee Barnes; the couple had first met as teenagers, and they remained together until her death on June 9, 2022.[41] They had five children, nineteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.[42] In 2016, the couple moved from theBack Bay ofBoston toHingham, Massachusetts; three of his five children also lived there as of 2017[update].[43][44] He had a summer home inCamden, Maine.[45][46] McCullough's interests included sports, history, and visual art, including watercolor and portrait painting.[47]
His son David Jr., an English teacher atWellesley High School in the Boston suburbs, achieved sudden fame in 2012, when he gave a commencement speech in which he repeatedly told graduating students that they were "not special"; his speech wentviral onYouTube.[48][49] Another son, Bill, is married to the daughter of the former governor of FloridaBob Graham.[50] McCullough's grandson David McCullough III is the founder of theAmerican Exchange Project.[51]
A registeredindependent, McCullough typically avoided publicly commenting on contemporary political issues. When asked to do so, he would repeatedly say, "My specialty is dead politicians." During the2016 U.S. presidential election season, he broke with his custom to criticizeDonald Trump, whom he called "a monstrous clown with a monstrous ego."[52][4]
McCullough was referred to as a "master of the art of narrative history."[66]The New York TimescriticJohn Leonard wrote that McCullough was "incapable of writing a page of bad prose."[25] His works have been published in ten languages, over nine million copies have been printed,[7] and all of his books are still in print.[2]
In 2017, McCullough was inducted into the DC Chapter of theSons of the American Revolution (SAR) and received the National Society SAR Good Citizenship Award.[72]
^"David McCullough".National Book Awards Acceptance Speeches. National Book Foundation. Archived fromthe original on April 15, 2008. RetrievedApril 24, 2008.
^ab"Johnstown Flood: Reviews and Praise". ElectricEggplant.Archived from the original on August 14, 2007. RetrievedApril 23, 2008.. The bestselling authorErik Larson has written thatThe Johnstown Flood was a book that changed his life. He found it full of "suspense, drama, class conflict, dire goings-on." Larson decided to write in the same genre, what he calls "narrative nonfiction," and thought McCullough's book "aBaedeker for how to go about it. I analyzed his source notes and outlined the story chapter by chapter, to try to divine just how he did it. And suddenly I had my compass. The result wasIsaac's Storm."AARP Magazine, April/May 2015,10.
^"Cornelius Ryan Award". Overseas Press Club of America. RetrievedApril 24, 2008.{{cite web}}:|archive-url= is malformed: timestamp (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
^"Distinguished Contribution to American Letters".National Book Foundation.Archived from the original on March 10, 2011. RetrievedMarch 12, 2012.With acceptance speech by McCullough and ex-post introduction by one of his publishers.
^U.S. Capitol Historical Society (December 11, 2015)."David McCullough to Receive 2016 Freedom Award".USCHS 2016 Freedom Award: David McCullough. U.S. Capitol Historical Society.Archived from the original on August 7, 2016. RetrievedMay 31, 2016.
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