David Gaub McCullough
(July 7, 1933 – August 7, 2022)
Seventy years ago, on August 7, 1952, President Harry S. Truman held his 311th press conference in the Indian Treaty Room of the Executive Office Building. While much of the nation focused on the upcoming election, Truman spoke of a terrible drought and, more pointedly, of a different crisis: over 29 million adult Americans were not registered to vote.
“The privilege of voting is one of the most treasured rights on earth,” he reminded his audience. “But we cannot have a big vote in this country without a big registration.”
I grew up in Framingham, Massachusetts, thirty-six miles from Hingham. My parents did not instill a love of history, but through PBS programs narrated by David McCullough, a seed was planted.
I first heard his voice in middle school during Ken Burns’ The Civil War. While classmates grew restless, I was transfixed. His narration carried reverence and intimacy, unlike anything I had ever experienced.
In February 2001, I stayed up late to watch “Abraham & Mary Lincoln: A House Divided,” For the first time, I saw Lincoln and Mary Todd not as marble figures but as human beings. Lincoln’s struggle with depression mirrored my own feelings, and McCullough’s voice gave those struggles dignity. I recorded the series on VHS and watched it often. It became a quiet balm while my parents divorced.
Years later, in college, I briefly studied film, thinking I wanted to direct. But I soon realized what I loved were the stories themselves, especially historical ones.
In 2008, I watched the HBO documentary “David McCullough: Painting With Words.” Seeing his life and work laid out with such purpose, I knew I wanted to do what he did. I switched my major to history. My professors praised my papers and encouraged me. But I lacked the money to continue, struggled with required courses I didn’t care for, and eventually dropped out.
That failure led to years of depression and dead-end jobs. Yet McCullough remained a lifeline. At library sales I picked up 1776, John Adams, and Truman for a few dollars each. They weren’t just books to me, they were companions. His words gave me hope that history might still have a place for me.
In 2015, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum hosted a forum featuring McCullough speaking on The Wright Brothers. I registered at once.
The day of the event, errands delayed me. By the time I arrived, the lecture had ended and the book signing had begun. I bought a copy of The Wright Brothers in the gift shop and joined the long line, nervous but determined.
I even let people pass me, wanting to be last. At one point I offered my place to a kind woman leaving Smith Hall, only to realize later that she was Rosalee, McCullough’s wife. The embarrassment still lingers.
When I noticed his son Geoffrey nearby, I asked if he might take a photo of me with his father. He kindly agreed. When my turn came, Geoffrey said, “Hey Dad, look up and smile. There’s a young man here who wants a picture with you.”
McCullough looked up, smiled warmly, and asked, “Oh? Do I know who he is?” I laughed nervously, but in that instant, I felt seen. Geoffrey snapped the photo. My quiet dream had come true.
I never met him again. Over the next seven years, I collected more of his works and revisited the places he wrote about: Quincy for John Adams, the JFK Library, local celebrations of American history. His words remained a companion, especially during lonely stretches of life.
McCullough often warned of historical illiteracy. In 2011, he told the Wall Street Journal how shocked he was when a college student confessed they hadn’t realized the thirteen colonies were all on the East Coast. He worried that too few Americans knew their own past.
He believed history should not be taught as a chore but as a source of joy. “History isn’t just something that ought to be taught because it will make us better citizens,” he said. “It will make us more thoughtful and understanding human beings. The pleasure of history, like art or music, consists in an expansion of the experience of being alive.”
That philosophy has become mine as well.
From McCullough I have four signed books and a single photograph. But his greater gift is harder to hold: the lessons, the inspiration, and the sense that history can be written with dignity and wonder.
He painted with words. He reminded us that ordinary people can live extraordinary lives. Through his books and his voice, he became my teacher, my mentor, and my quiet companion in lonely seasons.
As Edwin Stanton said of Abraham Lincoln, so too it can be said of David McCullough: “Now he belongs to the ages.”
David McCullough painted with words, not just to inform, but to inspire. He reminded us that ordinary people could live extraordinary lives—and that history, when written with care and reverence, could become a form of art. Through his books and his voice, he became my teacher, my mentor, and a quiet companion in my loneliest seasons. I hope to carry forward a portion of his spirit in the life I’m still building.
As Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said of President Abraham Lincoln when Lincoln breathed his last, so true it will be said of David McCullough: "Now He Belongs To The Ages."
I want to end with a passage from "The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For," a collection of his speeches:
“The lessons of history are manifold. Nothing happens in isolation. Everything that happens has consequences. We are all part of a larger stream of events, past, present, and future. We are all the beneficiaries of those who went before us — who built the cathedrals, who braved the unknown, who gave of their time and service, and who kept faith in the possibilities of the mind and the human spirit.
A sense of history is an antidote to self-pity and self-importance, of which there is too much in our time. To a large degree, history is a lesson in proportions.”
David McCullough gave us those proportions. Now it is our turn to carry them forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment