Historian, author Doris Kearns Goodwin will share lesson’s from past leaders at Cornell College

MOUNT VERNON - Doris Kearns Goodwin believes the presidents and politicians of our past have a lot to teach us.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author will share some of those lessons during a free lecture at Cornell College's Kings Chapel in Mount Vernon Thursday.

'The reason I love history so much is, you have to believe, just as we learn lessons from our own lives, if we look back to earlier generations you can look at the way they dealt with problems,” she says. 'It makes more expansive your view of the world.”

Goodwin is author of six best-selling books on American history, including the 1995 book 'No Ordinary time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt - The Home Front in World War II,” for which she won the Pulitzer Prize.

Her most recent works include 'The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism,” and 'Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” which inspired Steven Spielberg's feature film 'Lincoln.”

She hopes today's politicians, and the future politicians and activists, can take a page from Abraham Lincoln's playbook and learn to build alliances with their political antagonists.

History is full of such examples of what to do right and what mistakes to avoid, she says.

'It may seem like we've been living forever in this dysfunctional Washington world. But if you look back 50 years ago, there really was bipartisan effort to pass the Civil Rights Bill,” she says.

Of course, that cooperation wasn't always the case.

'Things were worse than now in the 1850s, when senators were carrying revolvers on the Senate floor,” she says. 'But this doesn't have to be the way it is now.”

Her talk, 'Leadership Lessons of History: Doris Kearns Goodwin on the American Presidents,” will look at the ways U.S. presidents have faced confounding problems, and offer insight and analysis on leaders including Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and more. The lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in Kings Chapel, which seats approximately 800. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. No tickets are required.

A key trait they share is the ability to connect with the public, she says.

Lincoln was the master of the written word, Teddy Roosevelt perfected the catchphrase, Franklin Roosevelt captivated the nation via radio and John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were charismatic television speakers, she says.

In the age of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, the bully pulpit, as she calls it, is somewhat more difficult to manage, but the key skills remain essential, she says.

'One trait our greatest presidents have shared is the ability to communicate a sense of purpose and worthy goals,” she says. 'How they do that does change over time, but the core stays the same.”

Drawing from her books, she will offer listeners a chance to learn from the stories of some of the country's most fascinating and revered leaders.

'Even though they were presidents in very different times, there are certain kinds of leadership traits are held in common by our most successful leaders,” she says.

Goodwin's talk will be the sixth lecture funded by Cornell's Delta Phi Rho Centennial Endowment. Previous speakers were Bob Woodward, Fareed Zakaria, George Stephanopoulos, David Gergen, and Karl Rove and Dee Dee Myers. A group of Delta alumni created the lecture series to contribute to the intellectual capital of the college and the community.

Goodwin earned a doctorate in government from Harvard University, where she later taught, including a course on the American presidency. She served as an assistant to President Lyndon Johnson in his last year in the White House and later assisted Johnson in the preparation of his memoirs. Goodwin is the winner of the Charles Frankel Prize, given by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Sarah Josepha Hale medal and the Lincoln Prize.

IF YOU GO

' What: Doris Kearns Goodwin:

' When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday; doors open at 6:30 p.m.

' Where: King Chapel, Cornell College, 600 First St. SW, Mt Vernon

' Cost: Free; no tickets required