David McCullough Gaining recognition Did he have any issues with grasping an audience Trying not to become "Bad News McCullough", he decided to write about a subject showing "people were not always foolish and inept or irresponsible."
was it always up hill or did he have some bad spots
was it always up hill for David McCullough or did he have some bad spots
After the success of The Johnstown Flood, two new publishers offered him contracts, one to write about the Great Chicago Fire and another about the San Francisco earthquake. Simon & Schuster, publisher of his first book, also offered McCullough a contract to write a second book. Trying not to become "Bad News McCullough", he decided to write about a subject showing "people were not always foolish and inept or irresponsible." 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." McCullough decided to write a history of the Brooklyn Bridge, which he had walked across many times.  To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.  - David McCullough  He also proposed, from a suggestion by his editor, a work about the Panama Canal; both were accepted by the publisher. Critics hailed The Great Bridge (1972) as "the definitive book on the event."  Five years later, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal was released, gaining McCullough widespread recognition. The book won the National Book Award in History, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Cornelius Ryan Award. Later in 1977, McCullough travelled to the White House to advise Jimmy Carter and the United States Senate on the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which would give Panama control of the Canal. Carter later said that the treaties, which were agreed upon to hand over ownership of the Canal to Panama, would not have passed had it not been for the book. CANNOTANSWER
After the success of The Johnstown Flood, two new publishers offered him contracts, one to write about the Great Chicago Fire and another about the San Francisco earthquake.
David Gaub McCullough (; born July 7, 1933) is an American author, narrator, popular historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, McCullough earned a degree in English literature from Yale University. His first book was The Johnstown Flood (1968); and he has since written nine more on such topics as Harry S. Truman, John Adams, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Wright brothers. McCullough has also narrated numerous documentaries, such as The Civil War by Ken Burns, as well as the 2003 film Seabiscuit; and he hosted American Experience for twelve years.

McCullough's two Pulitzer Prize-winning books, Truman and John Adams., have been adapted by HBO into a TV film and a miniseries, respectively.

Life and career

Youth and education
McCullough was born in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Ruth (née Rankin) and Christian Hax McCullough. He is of Scots-Irish descent. He was educated at Linden Avenue Grade School and Shady Side Academy, in his hometown of Pittsburgh. 

One of four sons, McCullough had a "marvelous" childhood with a wide range of interests, including sports and drawing cartoons. McCullough's parents and his grandmother, who read to him often, introduced him to books at an early age. His parents often talked about history, a topic he says should be discussed more often. McCullough "loved school, every day"; he contemplated many career choices, ranging from architect, actor, painter, writer, to lawyer, and considered attending medical school for a time.

In 1951, McCullough began attending Yale University. He said that it was a "privilege" to study English at Yale because of faculty members such as John O'Hara, John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren, and Brendan Gill. McCullough occasionally ate lunch with the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder. Wilder, says 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.

While at Yale, he became a member of Skull and Bones. He served apprenticeships at Time, Life, the United States Information Agency, and American Heritage, where he enjoyed research. "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." While attending Yale, McCullough studied Arts and earned his bachelor's degree in English, with the intention of becoming a fiction writer or playwright. He graduated with honors in English literature in 1955.

Writing career

Early career
After graduation, McCullough moved to New York City, where Sports Illustrated hired him as a trainee. He later worked as an editor and writer for the United States Information Agency in Washington, D.C. After working for twelve years in editing and writing, including a position at American Heritage, McCullough "felt that [he] had reached the point where [he] could attempt something on [his] own."

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." While working at American Heritage, McCullough wrote in his spare time for three years. The Johnstown Flood, a chronicle of one of the worst flood disasters in United States history, was published in 1968 to high praise by critics. John Leonard, of The New York Times, said of McCullough, "We have no better social historian." Despite rough financial times, he decided to become a full-time writer, encouraged by his wife Rosalee.

Gaining recognition
After the success of The Johnstown Flood, two new publishers offered him contracts, one to write about the Great Chicago Fire and another about the San Francisco earthquake. Simon & Schuster, publisher of his first book, also offered McCullough a contract to write a second book. Trying not to become "Bad News McCullough", he decided to write about a subject showing "people were not always foolish and inept or irresponsible." 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." McCullough decided to write a history of the Brooklyn Bridge, which he had walked across many times. It was published in 1972.

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.<p style="text-align: right;"> – David McCullough

He also proposed, from a suggestion by his editor, a work about the Panama Canal; both were accepted by the publisher.

Five years later, The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal was released, gaining McCullough widespread recognition. The book won the National Book Award in History, the Samuel Eliot Morison Award, the Francis Parkman Prize, and the Cornelius Ryan Award. Later in 1977, McCullough travelled to the White House to advise Jimmy Carter and the United States Senate on the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which would give Panama control of the Canal. Carter later said that the treaties, which were agreed upon to hand over ownership of the Canal to Panama, would not have passed had it not been for the book.

"The story of people"
McCullough's fourth work was his first biography, reinforcing his belief that "history is the story of people". Released in 1981, Mornings on Horseback tells the story of seventeen years in the life of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States. The work ranged from Roosevelt's childhood to 1886, and tells of a "life intensely lived." The book won McCullough's second National Book Award and his first Los Angeles Times Prize for Biography and New York Public Library Literary Lion Award. Next, he published Brave Companions, a collection of essays that "unfold seamlessly". Written over twenty years, the book includes essays about Louis Agassiz, Alexander von Humboldt, John and Washington Roebling, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Conrad Richter, and Frederic Remington.

With his next book, McCullough published his second biography, Truman (1993) about the 33rd president. The book won McCullough his first Pulitzer Prize, in the category of "Best Biography or Autobiography," and his second Francis Parkman Prize. Two years later, the book was adapted as Truman (1995), a television film by HBO, starring Gary Sinise as Truman.

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.<p style="text-align: right;"> – David McCullough

Working for the next seven years, McCullough published John Adams (2001), his third biography about a United States president. One of the fastest-selling non-fiction books in history, the book won McCullough's second Pulitzer Prize for "Best Biography or Autobiography" in 2002. He started it as a book about the founding fathers and back-to-back presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson; but dropped Jefferson to focus on Adams. HBO adapted John Adams as a seven-part miniseries by the same name. Premiering in 2008, it starred Paul Giamatti in the title role. The DVD version of the miniseries includes the biographical documentary, David McCullough: Painting with Words.

McCullough's 1776 tells the story of the founding year of the United States, focusing on George Washington, the amateur army, and other struggles for independence. Because of McCullough's popularity, its initial printing was 1.25 million copies, many more than the average history book. Upon its release, the book was a number one best-seller in the United States. A miniseries adaptation of 1776 was rumored.

McCullough considered writing a sequel to 1776. 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. The book covers 19th-century Americans, including Mark Twain and Samuel Morse, who migrated to Paris and went on to achieve importance in culture or innovation. Other subjects include Benjamin Silliman, who had been Morse's science teacher at Yale, Elihu Washburne, the American ambassador to France during the Franco-Prussian War, and Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female doctor in the United States.

McCullough's The Wright Brothers was published in 2015. The Pioneers followed in 2019, the story of the first European American settlers of the Northwest Territory, a vast American wilderness to which the Ohio River was the gateway.

Personal life

David McCullough has a home in Hingham, Massachusetts, since moving in 2016 from Boston's Back Bay; three of his five children reside in Hingham. He has a summer home in Camden, Maine. He is married to Rosalee Barnes McCullough, whom he met at age 17 in Pittsburgh. The couple have five children and nineteen grandchildren. He enjoys sports, history, and art, including watercolor and portrait painting.

His son, David Jr., an English teacher at Wellesley High School in the Boston suburbs, achieved sudden fame in 2012 with his commencement speech. He told graduating students, "you're not special" nine times, and his speech went viral on YouTube. Another son, Bill, is married to the daughter of former Florida governor Bob Graham.

A registered independent, McCullough has typically avoided publicly commenting on contemporary political issues. When asked to do so, he would repeatedly say, "My specialty is dead politicians." During the 2016 presidential election season, he broke with his custom to criticize Donald Trump, whom he called "a monstrous clown with a monstrous ego."

McCullough has taught a writing course at Wesleyan University and is a visiting scholar at Cornell University as well as Dartmouth College.

Awards and accolades

McCullough has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in December 2006, the highest civilian award that a United States citizen can receive. In 1995, the National Book Foundation conferred its lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

McCullough has been awarded more than 40 honorary degrees, including one from the Eastern Nazarene College in John Adams' hometown of Quincy, Massachusetts.

McCullough has received two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, two Francis Parkman Prizes, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, New York Public Library's Literary Lion Award, and the St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates, among others. McCullough was chosen to deliver the first annual John Hersey Lecture at Yale University on March 22, 1993. He is a member of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship and the Academy of Achievement. In 2003, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected McCullough for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities. McCullough's lecture was titled "The Course of Human Events".

In 1995, McCullough received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The Helmerich Award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.

McCullough has been called a "master of the art of narrative history." The New York Times critic John Leonard wrote that McCullough was "incapable of writing a page of bad prose." His works have been published in ten languages, over nine million copies have been printed, and all of his books are still in print.

In December 2012, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania announced that it would rename the 16th Street Bridge in Pittsburgh in honor of McCullough.

In a ceremony at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, on November 16, 2015, the Air University of the United States Air Force awarded McCullough an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters degree.  He was also made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa at Yale University in 2015.

On May 11, 2016, McCullough received the United States Capitol Historical Society's Freedom Award. It was presented in the National Statuary Hall.

In September 2016, McCullough received the Gerry Lenfest Spirit of the American Revolution Award from the Museum of the American Revolution.

Works

Books

Narrations
McCullough has narrated many television shows and documentaries throughout his career. In addition to narrating the 2003 film Seabiscuit, McCullough hosted PBS's American Experience from 1988 to 1999. McCullough has narrated numerous documentaries directed by Ken Burns, including the Emmy Award-winning The Civil War, the Academy Award-nominated Brooklyn Bridge, The Statue of Liberty, and The Congress.  He served as a guest narrator for The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, a Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert special that aired on PBS in 2010.

McCullough has narrated some of his own audiobooks, including introductions for the anniversary edition of The Great Bridge and The Greater Journey and the entire audiobooks of 1776 and The Wright Brothers.

List of films presented or narrated
 Brooklyn Bridge (1981)
 Smithsonian World (5 episodes, 1984–1988)
 The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God (1984)
 The Statue of Liberty (1985)
 Huey Long (1985)
 A Man, A Plan, A Canal : Panama (NOVA) (1987)
 The Congress (1988)
 The Civil War (9 episodes, 1990)
 American Experience (23 episodes, 1991–2006)
 Coney Island (1991)
 The Donner Party (1992)
 Degenerate Art (1993)
 D-Day Remembered (1994)
 Napoleon-PBS Empires Special (2000)
 George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire (2000)
 Seabiscuit (2003)
 The Most Wonderful Time of the Year (2010)

Notes

References

External links

David McCullough at Simon & Schuster

In Depth interview with McCullough, December 2, 2001

 

Speech Transcript: "Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are" at Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar on the topic, "American History and America's Future."
 

1933 births
Living people
20th-century American biographers
20th-century American historians
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American biographers
21st-century American historians
21st-century American male writers
American Experience
American male non-fiction writers
American people of Scotch-Irish descent
American political writers
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Historians of the United States
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
National Book Award winners
National Humanities Medal recipients
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography winners
Shady Side Academy alumni
Skull and Bones Society
Writers from Pittsburgh
Yale College alumni
"Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" is a song by American musician Chris Isaak, released as the first track to the 1995 album Forever Blue. Filled with sensuality and erotic imagery, the song was described by Isaak as a declaration to "somebody who is so evil and twisted and bad, and yet, you still want them". The title evokes how "That’s a bad bad thing" is used by both parents scolding misbehaving children and adults during sexual intercourse. In September 1999, a remix of the song peaked at number nine on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart, outperforming the number-27 peak of the original. In the United States, the 1999 reissue reached number three on the Billboard Adult Alternative Songs chart.

Background
Similar to how Isaak's "Wicked Game" only became a success following its inclusion in Wild at Heart (1990), the song got most of its mainstream recognition after being featured in the 1999 Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Kubrick heard the song as Kidman listened to Isaak's music to liven up during rehearsals. Isaak was asked for his approval as he prepared to perform on The Tonight Show, and immediately agreed once he was told it was for Kubrick, who Isaak declared "hasn't done a film I didn't like". The singer said he always considered "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" ripe for soundtracks due to being "kind of a strange piece of work, with a really driving beat and a manic energy that I thought would probably work well for some visuals". David Kahne remixed the track for the Eyes Wide Shut trailers and television spots, and the redone version was released as a radio single on June 22, 1999. Isaak has approved of the remix, feeling it was "more rocking and everything sounds louder".

Music video
The music video of the song was commissioned after its inclusion on Eyes Wide Shut, and directed by Herb Ritts, who also did the video for Isaak's "Wicked Game". It features French model Laetitia Casta videotaped in a motel room gyrating sexually being watched by Isaak. Casta was dressed in lingerie and wore a black wig throughout the video. In July 1999, VH1 aired two versions of the music video, the censored version was played before 9 p.m. and the uncensored version was played after 9 p.m. The video was initially regarded as too steamy by the network. The video was ranked number 28 on VH1's 50 Sexiest Video Moments.

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Release history

References

1994 songs
1995 singles
1999 singles
Chris Isaak songs
Music videos directed by Herb Ritts
Reprise Records singles
Song recordings produced by Erik Jacobsen
Songs written by Chris Isaak
Warner Music Group singles In Norse mythology, a  (Old Norse: , pl.   or   — "warden," "watcher" or "caretaker") is a warden spirit, believed to follow from birth to death the soul () of every person.

History
In Old Swedish, the corresponding word is ; in modern Swedish . The belief in this type of guardian spirits remained strong in Scandinavian folklore up until the last centuries and continues to be found in northern faith based religions today. The English word '"wraith" is derived from , while "ward" and "warden" are cognates.

At times, the warden could reveal itself as a small light or as the shape () of the person. The perception of another person's warden could cause a physical sensation such as an itching hand or nose, as a foreboding or an apparition. The warden could arrive before the actual person, which someone endowed with fine senses might perceive. The warden of a dead person could also become a revenant, haunting particular spots or individuals. In this case, the revenant warden was always distinct from more conscious undeads, such as the .

Under the influence of Christianity, the belief in wardens changed. Some view the spirit as being more akin to the Christian concept of a good and a bad conscience, while others view them as guardian angels.

Warden trees

A very old tree (often a linden, ash or elm) growing on the farm lot could be dubbed a "warden tree" (), or tuntre and was believed to defend it from bad luck. Breaking a leaf or twig from the warden tree was considered a serious offence. The respect for the tree was so great that the family housing it could adopt a surname related to it, such as Linnæus, Lindelius and Almén. It was often believed that the wights (Swedish ) of the yard lived under the roots of the warden tree, and to them, one sacrificed treats to be freed from disease or bad luck.
The Guardian trees were said to have been taken from sacred groves as saplings by pre Christian Germanic peoples, though today can be planted from anywhere.

See also
 
 
 Huginn and Muninn
  (Finnish paganism)
 
 Guardian spirit (disambiguation)

References

External links
 Vård  	 	Nordisk familjebok 

Scandinavian folklore
Norwegian folklore
Swedish folklore
Scandinavian legendary creatures
Creatures in Norse mythology