Almanac of Story Tellers: Margaret Leech

Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to story telling -- in prose and in poetry, in art and in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of Nov. 7th

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    It is the 311th day of the year, leaving 54 days remaining in 2022.

    On this date in 1893, the two-time Pulitzer Prize winning historian Margaret Leech was born.

    She told her stories with diligent and dedicated research with and vivid, detailed writing that pulled no punches. Her prize-winning books tackled presidents at the opposite ends of the spectrum -- the beloved Abraham Lincoln, credited with saving the country during the Civil War; and William McKinley, mostly ignored before her book, which was called "a first-rate study of a second-rate president."

    She was graduated from Vassar College in 1915, started working for Condé Nast publications, and became a member of the Algonquin Round Table.

    Her first books were novels -- The Back of the Book, published in 1924, was a semi-autobiographical tale of a woman working in New York. That and two others were praised for their detail and fine writing, but after a couple of biographies she co-wrote, and a failed play, she found Kleio and moved on to writing history.

    She spend five years reading letters and other documents in New York and Washington about life during the Civil War. The result was Reveille in Washington, 1859-1865, published in 1941. It became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1942. It was praised as showing "an implacable concern for the grim and bitter truth."

    Leech spend 12-plus years researching her next work, In the Days of McKinley. Her careful and detailed writing in the book, published in 1959, took a new look at McKinley, and actually improved his reputation. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize for History, she also won the Bancroft Prize, one of the most distinguished academic awards.

    Leech died in 1974.