David McCollough

I had the privilege of listening to historian David McCollough speak this morning. He spoke at Robert Morris University as a prelude to his appearance tonight at Heinz Hall.

It was a very open talk. In fact he spoke for only about 10 minutes, then opened up the floor for 45 minutes of questions.

In his opening comments he said that if one were to place a lens on only once place to tell the story of the United States, he contends that Pittsburgh is that place. (Oh, did I mention he was born and raised in the Point Breeze neighborhood of the city?)

He took us on a brief journey from the early trappers who roamed this area to George Washington as a young officer serving under General Braddock in the French and Indian War. He went on to the Revolution and pointed out that Lewis and Clark's boat was built here. After more examples, he concluded with the development of the polio vaccine and the transplant techniques pioneered at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

As he reminisced about his boyhood he recalled spending rainy Saturdays at the Carnegie in Oakland where the library, museum and music hall all share the same roof. At that place, he said, there are no boundaries in learning. One diorama there depicts an Arab on horseback being attacked by a lion. When he was in college, McCollough told his father that as a boy of 10 he was terrified of it. His father replied, "when I was that age, so was I."

His love of history was first inspired when he was 14 and tagged along on his friend's family vacation to Virginia. During that trip they toured Montecello and he was hooked by the story behind it. The rooms with their odd doors and Jefferson's inventions as well as his architectural designs for the estate and the UVA campus fascinated the teenage McCollough as well as the elder historian.

But it is the power of the story that drives history well written. He said that despite all the trends and movements, history is always a human story. As an example he quoted E. M. Forester's distinction between a sequence of events and a story. "The king died, then the queen died" is a sequence of events. "The king died, then the queen died of grief" is a story.

"Overall," he said, "historians should strive to write literature."

How well he has done just that. So we are looking forward to the book he is currently writing on Americans in Paris from the 1830s to the 1930s.. Even there he cited Pittsburghers from Mary Cassett to Gertrude Stein to naturally, Gene Kelly.

A morning very well spent!