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Pulitzer Prize
Awarded for	Excellence in newspaper journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition
Presented by	Columbia University
Country	United States
First awarded	1917
Official website	http://www.pulitzer.org/

The Pulitzer Prize  /ˈpʊlɨtsər/^[1] is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American (Hungarian-born) publisher Joseph Pulitzer in 1917 and is administered by Columbia University in New York City. Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of these, each winner receives a certificate and a US$10,000 cash award.^[2] The winner in the public service category of the journalism competition is awarded a gold medal, which always goes to a newspaper, although an individual may be named in the citation.

Entry and prize consideration[link]

The Pulitzer Prize does not automatically evaluate all applicable works in the media, but only those that have been entered with a $50 entry fee^[3] (one per desired entry category). Entries must fit in at least one of the specific prize categories, and cannot simply gain entrance on the grounds of having general literary or compositional properties.^[3] Works can also only be entered into a maximum of two prize categories, regardless of their properties.

Each year, 103 judges are selected^{[by whom?]} to "serve on 20 separate juries" for the 21 award categories (one jury for both photography awards). Most of the juries consist of five members, except for those of "public service, investigative reporting, beat reporting, feature writing and commentary categories", which have seven members.^[4] For each award category, a jury makes three nominations. The board selects the winner by majority vote from the nominations or bypass the nominations and select a different entry with a 75% majority vote. The board can also vote no award. The board gets no compensation for its work. The jurors in letters, music, and drama get a $2000 honorarium for the year, while each chair gets $2500.^[4]

The difference between entrants and nominated finalists[link]

Anyone whose work has been submitted is called an "entrant". The jury selects a small group of "nominated finalists" and announces them together with the winner for each category.

History[link]

Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer gave money in his will to Columbia University to launch a journalism school and establish the Prize. $250,000 was allocated to the prize and scholarships.^[5] He specified "four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one in education, and four traveling scholarships."^[4] After his death, the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded June 4, 1917; they are now announced each April.

Recipients[link]

Individuals[link]

Recipients of multiple Pulitzer Prizes include:

• Four awards:
  • Robert Frost
  • Eugene O'Neill (two of the awards were in a four-year period)
  • Carol Guzy (for photography)
• Three awards:
  • Edwin Arlington Robinson
  • Archibald MacLeish
  • Thomas L. Friedman for International Reporting and Commentary
  • Edward Albee
  • Thorton Wilder (once in the Novel category and twice in Drama)
  • Robert Penn Warren (once for Fiction and twice for Poetry)
  • Carl Sandburg (once for Biography and twice for Poetry)
• Two awards:
  • Robert Caro for Biography
  • David McCullough
  • Robert Lowell for Poetry
  • Mike Luckovich for Editorial Cartooning
  • Gene Weingarten for Feature Writing (twice (2008 and 2010) in a three-year period)
  • Margaret Leech for History
  • August Wilson for Drama
  • Barbara W. Tuchman for General Non-Fiction
  • Norman Mailer for Fiction and Non-Fiction
  • William Faulkner
  • John Updike
  • Gian Carlo Menotti for music composition
  • Samuel Barber for music composition
  • Elliot Carter for music composition
  • Booth Tarkington for Novel (twice in a four-year period)
  • Anthony Shadid for his coverage of the Iraq War
  • Edward O. Wilson for biology.
  • Horst Faas for Photography

Newspapers[link]

The prize for Public Service is awarded to newspapers. Awards for journalism categories such as General News Reporting may be awarded to individuals or newspapers or newspaper staffs.^{[citation needed]}

Categories[link]

The Pulitzer Prizes

Joseph Pulitzer    •    Pulitzers by year Pulitzer winners

Journalism:

Public Service Breaking News Reporting Investigative Reporting Explanatory Reporting Local Reporting National Reporting International Reporting Feature Writing Commentary Criticism Editorial Writing Editorial Cartooning Breaking News Photography Feature Photography

Letters and drama:

Biography or Autobiography Fiction Drama History Poetry General Non-Fiction

Other prizes:

Music Special Citations and Awards

Awards are made in categories relating to newspaper journalism, arts, and letters and fiction. Only published reports and photographs by United States-based newspapers or daily news organizations are eligible for the journalism prize. Beginning in 2007, "an assortment of online elements will be permitted in all journalism categories except for the competition's two photography categories, which will continue to restrict entries to still images."^[6] In December 2008 it was announced that for the first time content published in online-only news sources would be considered.^[7]

The current Pulitzer Prize category definitions in the 2008 competition, in the order they are awarded, are:

• Public Service – for a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper through the use of its journalistic resources, which may include editorials, cartoons, and photographs, as well as reporting. Often thought of as the grand prize, the Public Service award is given to the newspaper, not to individuals, though individuals are often mentioned for their contributions.
• Breaking News Reporting – for a distinguished example of local reporting of breaking news.
• Investigative Reporting – for a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single newspaper article or series.
• Explanatory Reporting – for a distinguished example of explanatory newspaper reporting that illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing, and clear presentation.
• Local Reporting – for a distinguished example of local newspaper reporting that illuminates significant issues or concerns.^[6]
• National Reporting – for a distinguished example of newspaper reporting on national affairs.
• International Reporting – for a distinguished example of newspaper reporting on international affairs, including United Nations correspondence.
• Feature Writing – for a distinguished example of newspaper feature writing giving prime consideration to high literary quality and originality.
• Commentary – for distinguished commentary.
• Criticism – for distinguished criticism.
• Editorial Writing – for distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clarity of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer perceives to be the right direction.
• Editorial Cartooning – for a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing, and pictorial effect.
• Breaking News Photography, previously called Spot News Photography – for a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence, or an album.
• Feature Photography – for a distinguished example of feature photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence, or an album.

There are six categories in letters and drama:

• Fiction – for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.
• Drama – for a distinguished play by an American playwright, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life.
• History – for a distinguished book on the history of the United States.
• Biography or Autobiography – for a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.
• Poetry – for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American poet.
• General Non-Fiction – for a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category.

There is one prize given for music:

• Pulitzer Prize for Music – for a distinguished musical contribution by an American that had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year.

There have also been a number of Special Citations and Awards.

In addition to the prizes, Pulitzer travelling fellowships are awarded to four outstanding students of the Graduate School of Journalism as selected by the faculty.

Board[link]

The 20-member board consists mostly of major newspaper editors and executives, along with six academics including the president of Columbia University and the dean and administrator of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The administrator and the dean cannot vote. The board elects its own members for a three-year term (excluding the dean and the administrator). Members of the board and the juries are selected with close attention "given to professional excellence and affiliation, as well as diversity in terms of gender, ethnic background, geographical distribution and size of newspaper." Each year, the chair rotates to the most senior member.^[8] The board makes all prize decisions.^[4]

The 2011–2012 board members were:^[9]

• Danielle Allen, UPS Foundation Professor, School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ
• Jim Amoss, Editor, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, LA (Co-chair)
• Randell Beck, President and Publisher, Argus Leader Media, Sioux Falls, SD
• Robert Blau, Managing Editor for projects and investigations, Bloomberg News, New York, NY
• Lee Bollinger, President, Columbia University, New York, NY
• Kathleen Carroll, Executive Editor and Senior Vice President, Associated Press (Co-chair)
• Joyce Dehli, Vice President for News, Lee Enterprises
• Junot Díaz, Author and Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Thomas Friedman, Columnist, The New York Times, New York, NY
• Paul Gigot, Editorial Page Editor, The Wall Street Journal, New York, NY
• Sig Gissler, Administrator, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York, NY
• Steven Hahn, Roy F. and Jeanette P. Nichols Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
• Nicholas Lemann, Dean, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, New York, NY
• Ann Marie Lipinski, Curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (Co-chair)
• Gregory Moore, Editor, The Denver Post, Denver, CO
• Eugene Robinson, Columnist and Associate Editor, The Washington Post
• Margaret Sullivan, Editor, The Buffalo News, Buffalo, NY
• Paul Tash, Chairman and CEO, Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, FL
• Jim VandeHei, Executive Editor and Co-founder, Politico
• Keven Ann Willey, Vice President/Editorial Page Editor, The Dallas Morning News

Discontinued awards[link]

Over the years, awards have been discontinued either because the field of the award has been expanded to encompass other areas, the award been renamed because the common terminology changed, or the award has become obsolete, such as the prizes for telegraphic reporting, which was based on the old technology of the telegram.

An example of a writing field that has been expanded was the former Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which has been changed to the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which also includes short stories, novellas, novelettes, and fictional poetry, as well as novels.

To find, for example, all the winners for investigative reporting, you have to also look back at the prize for local investigative specialized reporting, which previously was the prize for local reporting, no edition time.

Discontinued or merged categories include:

• Pulitzer Prize for Reporting, 1917–1947.
• Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence, 1929–1947.
• Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism, became the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting, 1985–1990, became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for Local General or Spot News Reporting, 1964–1984, became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for Local Investigative Specialized Reporting, 1964–1984, became the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, Edition Time, 1953–1963, became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, No Edition Time, 1953–1963, became the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for Photography, was divided in 1968 into Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and a spot news category, which became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography.
• Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting, 1991–1997, became the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting - International, became the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting - National, became the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for Specialized Reporting 1985–1990, became the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.
• Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting, 1991–2006; replaced by the reinstituted Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting^[6]
• Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, became the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Brief chronology of renamings, splittings, and introductions[link]

1917: + Biography or Autobiography; + History; + Editorial Writing; + Reporting

1918: + Novel; + Drama; + Public Service

1922: + Poetry; + Editorial Cartooning

1929: + Correspondence

1942: + Photography; + Telegraphic Reporting—National; + Telegraphic Reporting—International

1943: + Music

1948: − Correspondence; − Novel + Fiction; − Reporting + Local reporting; − Telegraphic Reporting—National + National Reporting; − Telegraphic Reporting—International + International Reporting

1953: − Local reporting + Local Reporting, Edition Time; + Local Reporting, No Edition Time

1962: + General Non-Fiction

1964: − Local Reporting, Edition Time + Local General or Spot News Reporting; − Local Reporting, No Edition Time + Local Investigative Specialized Reporting

1968: − Photography; + Feature Photography; + Spot News Photography

1970: + Commentary; + Criticism

1979: + Feature Writing

1985: − Local General or Spot News Reporting + General News Reporting; − Local Investigative Specialized Reporting; + Investigative Reporting; + Specialized Reporting; + Explanatory Journalism

1991: − General News Reporting + Spot News Reporting; − Specialized Reporting + Beat Reporting

1998: − Spot News Reporting + Breaking News Reporting; − Explanatory Journalism + Explanatory Reporting

2000: − Spot News Photography + Breaking News Photography

2007: − Beat Reporting + Local reporting

Controversies[link]

• Calls for revocation of journalist Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize
• Call for revocation of journalist William L. Laurence's 1946 Pulitzer Prize
• 1962 Biography Prize: Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst by W. A. Swanberg was recommended by the Prize board but overturned by the trustees of Columbia University because its subject, Hearst, was not an "eminent example of the biographer's art as specified in the prize definition".^[10]
• 1974 Fiction Prize: Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon was recommended by the three-member fiction panel but the eleven other members of the Prize board overturned that decision and no award was given.^[11]
• Forfeiture of Janet Cooke's 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for fabricating the story.

Criticism[link]

Some critics of the Pulitzer Prize have accused the organization of favoring those who support liberal causes or oppose conservative causes. Syndicated columnist L. Brent Bozell said that the Pulitzer Prize has a "liberal legacy", particularly in its prize for commentary.^[12] He pointed to a 31-year period in which only five conservatives won prizes for commentary. The claim is also supported by a statement from the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner for commentary, Kathleen Parker: "It's only because I'm a conservative basher that I'm now recognized."^[13]

See also[link]

• List of Pulitzer Prizes awarded to The New York Times
• National Magazine Awards

References[link]

• Auxier, George W. (March 1940). "Middle Western Newspapers and the Spanish American War, 1895–1898". Mississippi Valley Historical Review (Organization of American Historians) 26 (4): 523. DOI:10.2307/1896320. JSTOR 1896320. 

External links[link]

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• Official website

Harry Gerard "H. G." Bissinger III, also known as Buzz Bissinger (born November 1, 1954), is an American journalist and author, best known for his non-fiction book Friday Night Lights.

Early life and education[link]

Bissinger is the son of Eleanor (née Lebenthal) and Harry Gerard Bissinger II.^[1][2] He graduated from Phillips Academy in 1972 and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976, where he was a sports and opinion editor for The Daily Pennsylvanian.^[3][4][5]

Journalism[link]

While writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer he won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for his story on corruption in the Philadelphia court system in 1987.

In 1998 his article "Shattered Glass," an exposé of the career of New Republic writer Stephen Glass, was published in the magazine Vanity Fair, where he is a contributing editor. The article was later adapted for the 2003 film of the same name.

His magazine work has also appeared in the New York Times and Sports Illustrated. Bissinger's article for Vanity Fair, "Gone with the Wind" (August 2007) about the saga of 2006 Kentucky Derby Winner Barbaro, has been optioned by Universal Pictures.^[6] Bissinger's most recent article in Vanity Fair, "Inventing Ford Country" (March 2009) details the role Monument Valley played in the birth of American cinema.^[7]

In 2008, Bissinger wrote "The Throwback", an online sports column for The New York Times.^[8]

Buzz is currently a columnist at The Daily Beast.

Books[link]

He is perhaps best known for his book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream, which documents the 1988 season of the football team of Permian High School in Odessa, Texas. This work was the inspiration for the 1993 television series Against the Grain, and was turned into a successful film (which was released in October 2004), and a television series which debuted on NBC on October 3, 2006. The book has sold nearly two million copies. In a list of the one hundred best books on sports ever, Sports Illustrated ranked Friday Night Lights fourth and the best ever on football. ESPN called Friday Night Lights the best book on sports over the past quarter-century.

He has written two books in addition to Friday Night Lights: A Prayer for the City (1998), which offers insight into the urban political scene of Philadelphia during Mayor (who later became the Governor of Pennsylvania until 2011) Ed Rendell's term in the 1990s; and the New York Times' bestselling Three Nights in August (2005), which chronicles a series in August 2003 between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs through the perspective of Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.

Bissinger's book Shooting Stars was published by Penguin Press in September 2009.^[9] The book, co-authored with basketball superstar LeBron James, tells the story of James' high school career where he and his four best friends won a championship in basketball which remains the only championship Lebron James has won on any level. As part of the promotion of Shooting Stars, Bissinger appeared as a "Guest Commenter" on a Deadspin post on Oct. 1, 2009.^[10]

Bissinger's latest book, Father's Day, revolves around a singular cross-country road trip taken with one of his twin sons, Zach, a savant. Father's Day is scheduled to be published in May 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Personal life[link]

Bissinger is married to Lisa C. Smith, former Assistant Vice Chancellor of NYU Abu Dhabi, and has three sons. He divides his time between homes in Philadelphia and the Pacific Northwest.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Buzz Bissinger official website
• Friday Night Lights official website

Jennifer Egan
Egan at Occupy Wall Street, November 2011
Born	(1962-09-06) September 6, 1962 (age 49) Chicago, Illinois
Occupation	Novelist
Citizenship	United States
Genres	Fiction, Novel, Short story
Notable work(s)	Look at Me (novel, 2001), A Visit From the Goon Squad (novel, 2010)
Notable award(s)	National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, National Book Critics Circle Award
www.jenniferegan.com

Jennifer Egan (born September 6, 1962) is an American novelist and short story writer who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Egan's novel A Visit From the Goon Squad won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

Background and career[link]

She was raised in San Francisco. After she graduated from Lowell High School, Egan majored in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania, followed by two years at St John's College, Cambridge supported by a Thouron Award.^[1][2] She has published short fiction in The New Yorker, Harper's, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Ploughshares,^[3] among others, and her journalism appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine. She has published one short story collection and four novels, among which Look at Me was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001.

Egan has been hesitant to classify A Visit from the Goon Squad as either a novel or a short story collection. Speaking about A Visit from the Goon Squad's genre, Egan said, "I wanted to avoid centrality. I wanted polyphony. I wanted a lateral feeling, not a forward feeling. My ground rules were: every piece has to be very different, from a different point of view. I actually tried to break that rule later; if you make a rule then you also should break it!" The book features genre-bending content such as a chapter entirely formatted as a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. When discussing her inspiration and approach to the work, she said, "I don’t experience time as linear. I experience it in layers that seem to coexist…One thing that facilitates that kind of time travel is music, which is why I think music ended up being such an important part of the book. Also, I was reading Proust. He tries, very successfully in some ways, to capture the sense of time passing, the quality of consciousness, and the ways to get around linearity, which is the weird scourge of writing prose." ^[4]

Awards[link]

Egan at the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival

Egan received a Thouron Award in 1986.^[5] She was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1996,^[6] and was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library in 2004-05.^[7] In 2011 she was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.^[8]

Egan won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction)^[9] and a Pulitzer Prize for A Visit From the Goon Squad.^[10]

Works[link]

• Emerald City (short story collection) (1993, UK; released in US in 1996)
• The Invisible Circus (novel) (1995)
• Look at Me (novel) (2001)
• The Keep (novel) (2006)
• A Visit From the Goon Squad (novel) (2010)
• Black Box (short story) (2012)

Reviews[link]

Reviewing The Keep, The New York Times: Jennifer Egan is a refreshingly unclassifiable novelist; she deploys most of the arsenal developed by metafiction writers of the 1960s and refined by more recent authors like William T. Vollmann and David Foster Wallace — but she can’t exactly be counted as one of them. The opening of her novel, The Keep, lays out a whole Escherian architecture, replete with metafictional trapdoors, pitfalls, infinitely receding reflections and trompe l’œil effects, but what’s more immediately striking about this book is its unusually vivid and convincing realism.^[11]

See also[link]

• Mac Aodhagáin

References[link]

External links[link]

• Jennifer Egan's website
• Reviews & Scores for The Keep at Metacritic.com
• Book Review at Boldtype.com
• "The Ghost in the Renovation" at This Old House website
• Reading report from Happy Endings with Peter Behrens and David Rakoff, published at bookishlove.net (Nov 2006)
• 2010 BOMB Magazine interview of Jennifer Egan by Heidi Julavitz

Kay Ryan
Born	(1945-09-21) September 21, 1945 (age 66) San Jose, California, USA
Occupation	Poet, Educator
Nationality	American
Period	1970s-present
Genres	Poetry
Notable work(s)	The Best of It: New and Selected Poems (2010)
Notable award(s)	Guggenheim Fellowship (2004) Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (2004) United States Poet Laureate (2008-2010) Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (2011) MacArthur Fellowship (2011)
Partner(s)	Carol Adair (1978-2009†)
Influences Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost

Kay Ryan (born September 21, 1945) is an American poet and educator. She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems. Ryan was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate,^[1] from 2008 to 2010. She was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.^[2]

Biography[link]

Ryan was born in San Jose, California, and was raised in several areas of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert.^[3] After attending Antelope Valley College, she received bachelor's and master's degrees in English from University of California, Los Angeles.^[4] Since 1971, she has lived in Marin County, California, and has taught English part-time at the College of Marin in Kentfield.^[5] Carol Adair, who was also an instructor at the College of Marin, was Ryan's partner from 1978 until Adair's death in 2009.^[6][7]

Her first collection, Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, was privately published in 1983 with the help of friends.^[8] While she found a commercial publisher for her second collection, Strangely Marked Metal (1985), her work went nearly unrecognized until the mid 1990s, when some of her poems were anthologized and the first reviews in national journals were published.^[9] She became widely recognized following her receipt of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2004, and published her sixth collection of poetry, The Niagara River, in 2005.

In July 2008, the U.S. Library of Congress announced that Ryan would be the sixteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress for a one-year term commencing in Autumn 2008. She succeeded Charles Simic.^[1] In April 2009, the Library announced that Ryan would serve a second one-year term extending through May 2010.^[10] She was succeeded by W.S. Merwin in June 2010.^[11]

She lives in Fairfax, in Marin County, CA.

Poetry[link]

The Poetry Foundation's website has characterized Ryan's poems as follows: "Like Emily Dickinson and Marianne Moore before her, Ryan delights in quirks of logic and language and teases poetry out of the most unlikely places. She regards the 'rehabilitation of clichés,' for instance, as part of the poet’s mission. Characterized by subtle, surprising rhymes and nimble rhythms, her compact poems are charged with sly wit and off-beat wisdom." J. D. McClatchy included Ryan in his 2003 anthology of contemporary American poetry.^[12] He wrote in his introduction, "Her poems are compact, exhilarating, strange affairs, like Satie miniatures or Cornell boxes. ... There are poets who start with lived life, still damp with sorrow or uncertainty, and lead it towards ideas about life. And there are poets who begin with ideas and draw life in towards their speculations. Marianne Moore and May Swenson were this latter sort of artist; so is Kay Ryan."^[12]

Ryan's poems are often quite short. In one of the first essays on Ryan, Dana Gioia wrote about this aspect of her poetry. "Ryan reminds us of the suggestive power of poetry–how it elicits and rewards the reader’s intellect, imagination, and emotions. I like to think that Ryan’s magnificently compressed poetry – along with the emergence of other new masters of the short poem like Timothy Murphy and H.L. Hix and the veteran maestri like Ted Kooser and Dick Davis – signals a return to concision and intensity."^[9]

Many reviewers have noted an affinity between Ryan's poetry and Marianne Moore's.^[13]

In addition to the oft-remarked affinity with Moore, affinities with poets May Swenson, Stevie Smith, Emily Dickinson, Wendy Cope, and Amy Clampitt have been noted by some critics. Thus Katha Pollitt wrote that Ryan's fourth collection, Elephant Rocks (1997), is "Stevie Smith rewritten by William Blake" but that Say Uncle (2000) "is like a poetical offspring of George Herbert and the British comic poet Wendy Cope."^[14] Another reviewer of Say Uncle (2000) wrote of Ryan, "Her casual manner and nods to the wisdom tradition might endear her to fans of A. R. Ammons or link her distantly to Emily Dickinson. But her tight structures, odd rhymes and ethical judgments place her more firmly in the tradition of Marianne Moore and, latterly, Amy Clampitt."^[15]

Ryan's wit, quirkiness, and slyness are often noted by reviewers of her poetry, but Jack Foley emphasizes her essential seriousness. In his review of Say Uncle he writes, "There is, in short, far more darkness than 'light' in this brilliant, limited volume. Kay Ryan is a serious poet writing serious poems, and she resides on a serious planet (a word she rhymes with 'had it'). Ryan can certainly be funny, but it is rarely without a sting."^[16] Some of these disjoint qualities in her work are illustrated by her poem "Outsider Art", which Harold Bloom selected for the anthology The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997.

Ryan is also known for her extensive use of internal rhyme. She refers to her specific methods of using internal rhyme as "recombinant rhyme." She claims that she had a hard time "tak[ing] end-rhyme seriously," and uses recombinant rhyme to bring structure and form to her work. As for other types of form, Ryan claims that she cannot use them, stating that it is "like wearing the wrong clothes."^[17]

Honors and awards[link]

Ryan's awards include a 1995 award from the Ingram Merrill Foundation,^[1] the 2000 Union League Poetry Prize,^[18] the 2001 Maurice English Poetry Award, a fellowship in 2001 from the National Endowment for the Arts,^[19] a 2004 Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2004 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Her poems have been included in three Pushcart Prize anthologies,^[20][21][22] and have been selected four times for The Best American Poetry;^[23][24][25] "Outsider Art" was selected by Harold Bloom for The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997. Since 2006, Ryan has served as one of fourteen Chancellors of The Academy of American Poets.^[26] On January 22, 2011, Ryan was listed as a finalist for the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award; on April 18, 2011, Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, for her collection The Best of It: New and Selected Poems.^{[27][28][29][30]}

On September 20th, 2011, Ryan was awarded the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation MacArthur Fellows Program 'genius grant.' ^[31]

Poetry collections[link]

• 1983: Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, 64 pages, Fairfax, California: Taylor Street Press, ISBN 0911407006
• 1985: Strangely Marked Metal, 50 pages, Providence, Rhode Island: Copper Beech Press, ISBN 0914278460
• 1994: Flamingo Watching, 63 pages, Providence, Rhode Island: Copper Beech Press, ISBN 0914278649
• 1996: Elephant Rocks, 84 pages, New York: Grove Press, ISBN 0802115861
• 2000: Say Uncle, New York: Grove Press, 80 pages, ISBN 0802137172
• 2005: The Niagara River, 72 pages, New York: Grove Press, ISBN 0802142222
• 2008: Jam Jar Lifeboat & Other Novelties Exposed, illustrated by Carl Dern. 40 pages, Red Berry Editions, ISBN 9780981578118
• 2010: The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Grove Press, ISBN 978-0802119148

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Kay Ryan: Online Resources". The Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ryan/. Retrieved 2008-07-21. 
• Profile and poems of Kay Ryan at the Poetry Foundation.
• Sarah Fay (Winter 2008). "Kay Ryan, The Art of Poetry No. 94". The Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5889/the-art-of-poetry-no-94-kay-ryan. 
• Audio: Kay Ryan reading at the 2010 Key West Literary Seminar (29:52)
• Review of The Best of It by Dwight Garner in The New York Times.
• Essay by Dana Gioia "Discovering Kay Ryan". First published in The Dark Horse journal (No. 7, Winter 1998-99).

Lyndon B. Johnson
36th President of the United States
In office November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969
Vice President	None (1963–1965) Hubert Humphrey (1965–1969)
Preceded by	John F. Kennedy
Succeeded by	Richard Nixon
37th Vice President of the United States
In office January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
President	John F. Kennedy
Preceded by	Richard Nixon
Succeeded by	Hubert Humphrey
Senate Majority Leader
In office January 3, 1955 – January 3, 1961
Deputy	Earle Clements Mike Mansfield
Preceded by	William F. Knowland
Succeeded by	Mike Mansfield
Senate Minority Leader
In office January 3, 1953 – January 3, 1955
Deputy	Earle Clements
Preceded by	Styles Bridges
Succeeded by	William F. Knowland
Senate Majority Whip
In office January 3, 1951 – January 3, 1953
Leader	Ernest McFarland
Preceded by	Francis J. Myers
Succeeded by	Leverett Saltonstall
United States Senator from Texas
In office January 3, 1949 – January 3, 1961
Preceded by	W. Lee O'Daniel
Succeeded by	William A. Blakley
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 10th district
In office April 10, 1937 – January 3, 1949
Preceded by	James P. Buchanan
Succeeded by	Homer Thornberry
Personal details
Born	Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-08-27)August 27, 1908 Stonewall, Texas, U.S.
Died	January 22, 1973(1973-01-22) (aged 64) Stonewall, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Lady Bird Taylor
Children	Lynda Luci
Alma mater	Southwest Texas State Teachers College
Profession	Teacher
Religion	Disciples of Christ
Signature
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1941–1942
Rank	Lieutenant commander
Battles/wars	World War II  • Salamaua-Lae campaign
Awards	Silver Star Presidential Medal of Freedom (Posthumous; 1980)

Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States (1963–1969), a position he assumed after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States (1961–1963). He is one of only four people^[1] who served in all four elected federal offices of the United States: Representative, Senator, Vice President, and President.^[2] Johnson, a Texas Democrat, served as a United States Representative from 1937–1949 and as a Senator from 1949–1961, including six years as United States Senate Majority Leader, two as Senate Minority Leader and two as Senate Majority Whip. After campaigning unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1960, Johnson was asked by John F. Kennedy to be his running mate for the 1960 presidential election.

Johnson succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, completed the rest of Kennedy's term and was elected President in his own right, winning by a large margin in the 1964 election. Johnson was greatly supported by the Democratic Party and as President, he was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and his "War on Poverty." He was renowned for his domineering personality and the "Johnson treatment," his coercion of powerful politicians in order to advance legislation.

Johnson escalated American involvement in the Vietnam War, from 16,000 American advisors/soldiers in 1963 to 550,000 combat troops in early 1968, as American casualties soared and the peace process bogged down. The involvement stimulated a large angry antiwar movement based especially on university campuses in the U.S. and abroad.^[3] Summer riots broke out in most major cities after 1965, and crime rates soared, as his opponents raised demands for "law and order" policies. The Democratic Party split in multiple feuding factions, and after Johnson did poorly in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, he ended his bid for reelection. Republican Richard Nixon was elected to succeed him. Historians argue that his presidency marked the peak of modern liberalism in the United States after the New Deal era. Johnson is ranked favorably by some historians because of his domestic policies.^[4][5]

Early years[link]

Lyndon Johnson in 1915

Johnson was born in Stonewall, Texas, in a small farmhouse on the Pedernales River. His parents, Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr., and Rebekah Baines, had three girls and two boys: Johnson and his brother, Sam Houston Johnson (1914–78), and sisters Rebekah (1910–78), Josefa (1912–61), and Lucia (1916–97). The nearby small town of Johnson City, Texas, was named after LBJ's father's cousin, James Polk Johnson, whose forebears had moved west from Georgia. The Johnsons were of Scots-Irish and English ancestry. In school, Johnson was an awkward, talkative youth and was elected president of his 11th-grade class. He graduated from Johnson City High School (1924), having participated in public speaking, debate, and baseball.^{[6][7][better source needed]}

Johnson was maternally descended from a pioneer Baptist clergyman, George Washington Baines, who pastored eight churches in Texas, as well as others in Arkansas and Louisiana. Baines was also the president of Baylor University during the American Civil War. George Baines was the grandfather of Johnson's mother, Rebekah Baines Johnson (1881–1958).

Johnson's grandfather, Samuel Ealy Johnson, Sr., was raised as a Baptist. Subsequently, in his early adulthood, he became a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). In his later years the grandfather became a Christadelphian; Johnson's father also joined the Christadelphian Church toward the end of his life.^[8] Later, as a politician, Johnson was influenced in his positive attitude towards Jews by the religious beliefs that his family, especially his grandfather, had shared with him (see Operation Texas).^[9]

In 1926, Johnson enrolled in Southwest Texas State Teachers' College (now Texas State University-San Marcos). He worked his way through school, participated in debate and campus politics, and edited the school newspaper called The College Star, now known as The University Star.^[10] He dropped out of school in 1927, and returned one year later, graduating in 1930. The college years refined his skills of persuasion and political organization. In 1927, Johnson taught mostly Mexican children at the Welhausen School in Cotulla, some ninety miles south of San Antonio in La Salle County. In 1930, he taught in Pearsall High School in Pearsall, Texas, and afterwards took a position as teacher of public speaking at Sam Houston High School in Houston.^[11] When he returned to San Marcos in 1965, after having signed the Higher Education Act of 1965, Johnson looked back:

"I shall never forget the faces of the boys and the girls in that little Welhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet the pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically every one of those children because they were too poor. And I think it was then that I made up my mind that this nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American."^[12]

Early political career[link]

Johnson briefly taught public speaking and debate in a Houston high school, then entered politics. Johnson's father had served five terms in the Texas legislature and was a close friend of one of Texas's rising political figures, Congressman Sam Rayburn. In 1930, Johnson campaigned for Texas State Senator Welly Hopkins in his run for Congress. Hopkins recommended him to Congressman Richard M. Kleberg, who appointed Johnson as Kleberg's legislative secretary. Johnson was elected speaker of the "Little Congress," a group of Congressional aides, where he cultivated Congressmen, newspapermen and lobbyists. Johnson's friends soon included aides to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as fellow Texans such as Vice President John Nance Garner. He became a surrogate son to Sam Rayburn.

President Roosevelt, Governor James Allred of Texas, and Johnson. In later campaigns, Johnson edited Governor Allred out of the picture to assist his campaign.

Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor (already nicknamed "Lady Bird") of Karnack, Texas on November 17, 1934, after having attended Georgetown University Law Center for several months. They had two daughters, Lynda Bird, born in 1944, and Luci Baines, born in 1947. Johnson enjoyed giving people and animals his own initials his daughters' given names are examples, as was his dog, Little Beagle Johnson.^[13]

In 1935, he was appointed head of the Texas National Youth Administration, which enabled him to use the government to create education and job opportunities for young people. He resigned two years later to run for Congress. Johnson, a notoriously tough boss throughout his career, often demanded long workdays and work on weekends.^[14]

He was described by friends, fellow politicians, and historians as motivated throughout his life by an exceptional lust for power and control. As Johnson's biographer Robert Caro observes, "Johnson's ambition was uncommon—in the degree to which it was unencumbered by even the slightest excess weight of ideology, of philosophy, of principles, of beliefs."^[15]

Congressional career[link]

House of Representatives[link]

In 1937, Johnson successfully contested a special election for Texas's 10th congressional district, that covered Austin and the surrounding hill country. He ran on a New Deal platform and was effectively aided by his wife. He served in the House from April 10, 1937, to January 3, 1949.^[16]

President Franklin D. Roosevelt found Johnson to be a welcome ally and conduit for information, particularly with regard to issues concerning internal politics in Texas (Operation Texas) and the machinations of Vice President John Nance Garner and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. Johnson was immediately appointed to the Naval Affairs Committee. He worked for rural electrification and other improvements for his district. Johnson steered the projects towards contractors that he personally knew, such as the Brown Brothers, Herman and George, who would finance much of Johnson's future career.^{[17][better source needed]} In 1941, he ran for the U.S. Senate in a special election against the sitting Governor of Texas, radio personality W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel. Johnson lost the election.

War record[link]

Lyndon B. Johnson in Navy uniform in March 1942.

After America entered World War II in December 1941, Johnson, still in Congress, became a commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve, then asked Undersecretary of the Navy James Forrestal for a combat assignment.^[18] Instead he was sent to inspect the shipyard facilities in Texas and on the West Coast. In the spring of 1942, President Roosevelt needed his own reports on what conditions were like in the Southwest Pacific. Roosevelt felt information that flowed up the military chain of command needed to be supplemented by a highly trusted political aide. From a suggestion by Forrestal, President Roosevelt assigned Johnson to a three-man survey team of the Southwest Pacific.

Johnson reported to General Douglas MacArthur in Australia. Johnson and two Army officers went to the 22nd Bomb Group base, which was assigned the high risk mission of bombing the Japanese airbase at Lae in New Guinea. A colonel took Johnson's original seat on one bomber, and it was shot down with no survivors. Reports vary on what happened to the B-26 Marauder carrying Johnson. Lyndon Johnson said it was also attacked by Japanese fighters but survived, while others, including other members of the flight crew, claim it turned back because of generator trouble before reaching the objective and before encountering enemy aircraft and never came under fire, which is supported by official flight records.^[19] Other airplanes that continued to the target did come under fire near the target at about the same time that Johnson's plane was recorded as having landed back at the original airbase. MacArthur awarded Johnson the Silver Star, the military's third-highest medal.^[19]

Johnson reported back to Roosevelt, to the Navy leaders, and to Congress that conditions were deplorable and unacceptable. He argued the South West Pacific urgently needed a higher priority and a larger share of war supplies. The warplanes sent there, for example, were "far inferior" to Japanese planes, and morale was bad. He told Forrestal that the Pacific Fleet had a "critical" need for 6,800 additional experienced men. Johnson prepared a twelve-point program to upgrade the effort in the region, stressing "greater cooperation and coordination within the various commands and between the different war theaters." Congress responded by making Johnson chairman of a high-powered subcommittee of the Naval Affairs committee. With a mission similar to that of the Truman Committee in the Senate, he probed into the peacetime "business as usual" inefficiencies that permeated the naval war and demanded that admirals shape up and get the job done. Johnson went too far when he proposed a bill that would crack down on the draft exemptions of shipyard workers if they were absent from work too often. Organized labor blocked the bill and denounced Johnson. Still, Johnson's mission had a substantial impact because it led to upgrading the South Pacific theater and aided the overall war effort immensely. Johnson's biographer concludes, "The mission was a temporary exposure to danger calculated to satisfy Johnson's personal and political wishes, but it also represented a genuine effort on his part, however misplaced, to improve the lot of America's fighting men."^[20]

Senate[link]

1948 contested election[link]

Lyndon B. Johnson as Senator from Texas.

In the 1948 elections, Johnson again ran for the Senate and won. This election was highly controversial: in a three-way Democratic Party primary Johnson faced a well-known former governor, Coke Stevenson, and a third candidate. Johnson drew crowds to fairgrounds with his rented helicopter dubbed "The Johnson City Windmill". He raised money to flood the state with campaign circulars and won over conservatives by voting for the Taft-Hartley act (curbing union power) as well as by criticizing unions.

Stevenson came in first but lacked a majority, so a runoff was held. Johnson campaigned even harder this time around, while Stevenson's efforts were surprisingly poor. The runoff count took a week. The Democratic State Central Committee (not the State of Texas, because the matter was a party primary) handled the count, and it finally announced that Johnson had won by 87 votes. By a majority of one member (29–28) the committee voted to certify Johnson's nomination, with the last vote cast on Johnson's behalf by Temple, Texas, publisher Frank W. Mayborn, who rushed back to Texas from a business trip in Nashville, Tennessee. There were many allegations of fraud on both sides. Thus one writer alleges that Johnson's campaign manager, future Texas governor John B. Connally, was connected with 202 ballots in Precinct 13 in Jim Wells County that had curiously been cast in alphabetical order and just at the close of polling, with all of the people whose names appeared on the ballots being dead on election day. Robert Caro argued in his 1989 book that Johnson had stolen the election in Jim Wells County and other counties in South Texas, as well as rigging 10,000 ballots in Bexar County alone.^[21] An election judge, Luis Salas, said in 1977, that he had certified 202 fraudulent ballots for Johnson.^[22]

The state Democratic convention upheld Johnson. Stevenson went to court, but—with timely help from his friend Abe Fortas—Johnson prevailed. Johnson was elected senator in November and went to Washington tagged with the ironic label "Landslide Lyndon," which he often used deprecatingly to refer to himself.

Freshman senator[link]

Once in the Senate, Johnson was known among his colleagues for his highly successful "courtships" of older senators, especially Senator Richard Russell, Democrat from Georgia, and the leader of the Conservative coalition and arguably the most powerful man in the Senate. Johnson proceeded to gain Russell's favor in the same way that he had "courted" Speaker Sam Rayburn and gained his crucial support in the House.

Johnson was appointed to the Senate Armed Services Committee, and later in 1950, he helped create the Preparedness Investigating Subcommittee. Johnson became its chairman and conducted investigations of defense costs and efficiency. These investigations tended to dig out old forgotten investigations and demand actions that were already being taken by the Truman Administration, although it can be said that the committee's investigations caused the changes. Johnson's brilliant handling of the press, the efficiency with which his committee issued new reports, and the fact that he ensured every report was endorsed unanimously by the committee all brought him headlines and national attention.

Johnson used his political influence in the Senate to receive broadcast licenses from the Federal Communications Commission in his wife's name.^[22][23]

In 1951, Johnson was chosen as Senate Majority Whip under a new Majority Leader, Ernest McFarland of Arizona, and served from 1951 to 1953.^[16]

Senate Democratic leader[link]

Senate Desk X, used by all Democratic leaders, including Johnson, since Joseph Taylor Robinson

In the 1952 general election Republicans won a majority in both House and Senate. Among defeated Democrats that year was McFarland, who lost to then-little-known Barry Goldwater, Johnson's future presidential opponent.

In January 1953, Johnson was chosen by his fellow Democrats to be the minority leader. Thus, he became the least senior Senator ever elected to this position, and one of the least senior party leaders in the history of the Senate. One of his first actions was to eliminate the seniority system in appointment to a committee, while retaining it in terms of chairmanships. In the 1954 election, Johnson was re-elected to the Senate, and since the Democrats won the majority in the Senate, Johnson became majority leader. Former majority leader, William Knowland was elected minority leader. Johnson's duties were to schedule legislation and help pass measures favored by the Democrats. Johnson, Rayburn and President Dwight D. Eisenhower worked smoothly together in passing Eisenhower's domestic and foreign agenda.

Johnson, a 60-a-day smoker, suffered a near-fatal heart attack on July 2, 1955. He completely gave up smoking as a result, with only a couple of exceptions, and did not resume the habit until he left the White House on January 20, 1969. During the Suez Crisis Johnson supported the Anglo-French military attempt to topple the Egyptian dictator Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, and tried to prevent the US government from criticising the Israeli invasion of the Sinai peninsula.

In sharp contrast to what would become during his Presidency, Johnson was strongly opposed as Senate Majority Leader to Eisenhower's 1957 Civil Rights Act, fearful that its passage would tear his party apart. Thus with the help of the judiciary committee led by Senator James Eastland, the bill ended up being far weaker than it originally started, but it still became law and Johnson tried to give himself credit for its "passage".

President Johnson giving "The Treatment" to Senator Richard Russell in 1963.

Historians Caro and Dallek consider Lyndon Johnson the most effective Senate majority leader in history. He was unusually proficient at gathering information. One biographer suggests he was "the greatest intelligence gatherer Washington has ever known", discovering exactly where every Senator stood, his philosophy and prejudices, his strengths and weaknesses, and what it took to break him.^[24] Robert Baker claimed that Johnson would occasionally send senators on NATO trips in order to avoid their dissenting votes.^[25] Central to Johnson's control was "The Treatment",^[26] described by two journalists:^[27]

The Treatment could last ten minutes or four hours. It came, enveloping its target, at the Johnson Ranch swimming pool, in one of Johnson's offices, in the Senate cloakroom, on the floor of the Senate itself — wherever Johnson might find a fellow Senator within his reach.

Its tone could be supplication, accusation, cajolery, exuberance, scorn, tears, complaint and the hint of threat. It was all of these together. It ran the gamut of human emotions. Its velocity was breathtaking, and it was all in one direction. Interjections from the target were rare. Johnson anticipated them before they could be spoken. He moved in close, his face a scant millimeter from his target, his eyes widening and narrowing, his eyebrows rising and falling. From his pockets poured clippings, memos, statistics. Mimicry, humor, and the genius of analogy made The Treatment an almost hypnotic experience and rendered the target stunned and helpless.

Vice Presidency[link]

Election[link]

Johnson's success in the Senate made him a possible Democratic presidential candidate. He was the "favorite son" candidate of the Texas delegation at the Party's national convention in 1956. In 1960, after the failure of the "Stop Kennedy" coalition he had formed with Adlai Stevenson, Stuart Symington, and Hubert Humphrey, Johnson received 409 votes on the only ballot at the Democratic convention, which nominated John F. Kennedy. Tip O'Neill, then a representative from Kennedy's home state of Massachusetts, recalled that Johnson approached him at the convention and said, "Tip, I know you have to support Kennedy at the start, but I'd like to have you with me on the second ballot." O'Neill replied, "Senator, there's not going to be any second ballot."^[28]

Kennedy realized that he could not be elected without support of traditional Southern Democrats, most of whom had backed Johnson. Therefore, Johnson was offered the vice-presidential nomination. Some sources (such as Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.'s) state that Kennedy offered the position to Johnson as a courtesy and did not expect him to accept. Others (such as W. Marvin Watson) say that the Kennedy campaign was desperate to win the 1960 election against Richard Nixon and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and needed Johnson on the ticket to help carry Southern states. According to still other sources, Kennedy did not want Johnson as his running-mate and did not want to ask him. Kennedy's reported choice was Stuart Symington. Johnson decided to seek the Vice Presidency and with House Speaker Sam Rayburn's help pressured Kennedy to give him a spot.^[29]

At the same time as his Vice Presidential run, Johnson also sought a third term in the U.S. Senate. According to Robert Caro, "On November 5, 1960, Lyndon Johnson won election for both the vice presidency of the United States, on the Kennedy-Johnson ticket, and for a third term as Senator (he had Texas law changed to allow him to run for both offices). When he won the vice presidency, he made arrangements to resign from the Senate, as he was required to do under federal law, as soon as it convened on January 3, 1961."^[30] (In 1988, Lloyd Bentsen, the Vice Presidential running mate of Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, and also a Senator from Texas, took advantage of "Lyndon's law," and was able to retain his seat in the Senate despite Dukakis' loss to George H. W. Bush. The same went for Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut in 2000 after Al Gore lost to George W. Bush. In 2008, Joseph Biden of Delaware was elected Vice President and was re-elected U.S. Senator, as Johnson had done in 1960.)

Johnson was re-elected Senator with 1,306,605 votes (58 percent) to Republican John Tower's 927,653 (41.1 percent). Fellow Democrat William A. Blakley was appointed to replace Johnson as Senator, but Blakley lost a special election in May 1961 to Tower.

Office[link]

President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson prior to a ceremony.

After the election, Johnson found himself powerless. He initially attempted to transfer the authority of Senate Majority Leader to the Vice Presidency, since that office made him President of the Senate, but faced vehement opposition from the Democratic Caucus, including members he'd counted as his supporters.^[31] His lack of influence was thrown into relief later that year when Kennedy appointed Johnson's friend Sarah T. Hughes to a federal judgeship; whereas Johnson had tried and failed to garner the nomination for Hughes at the beginning of his vice presidency, House Speaker Sam Rayburn wrangled the appointment from Kennedy in exchange for support of an administration bill.

Despite Kennedy's efforts to keep Johnson busy, informed, and at the White House often, JFK's advisors and some members of the Kennedy family were more dismissive to Johnson. Kennedy appointed him to jobs such as head of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities, through which he worked with African Americans and other minorities. Though Kennedy may have intended this to remain a more nominal position, Taylor Branch in Pillar of Fire contends that Johnson served to push the Kennedy administration's actions for civil rights further and faster than Kennedy originally intended to go. Branch notes the irony of Johnson, who the Kennedy family hoped would appeal to conservative southern voters, being the advocate for civil rights. In particular he notes Johnson's Memorial Day 1963 speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania as being a catalyst that led to more action.

Johnson took on numerous minor diplomatic missions, which gave him limited insights into global issues. He was allowed to observe Cabinet and National Security Council meetings. Kennedy did give Johnson control over all presidential appointments involving Texas, and he was appointed chairman of the President's Ad Hoc Committee for Science. When, in April 1961, the Soviets beat the U.S. with the first manned spaceflight, Kennedy tasked Johnson with coming up with a program that would prove world leadership. Johnson knew that Project Apollo and an enlarged NASA were feasible, so he steered the recommendation towards a program for landing an American on the Moon.^[32]

Johnson was touched by a Senate scandal in August 1963 when Bobby Baker, the Senate Majority Secretary and a protege of Johnson's, came under investigation by the Senate Rules Committee for allegations of bribery and financial malfeasance. One witness alleged that Baker had arranged for the witness to give kickbacks for the Vice President. Baker resigned in October, and the investigation stopped from expanding to Johnson. The negative publicity from the affair fed rumors in Washington circles that Kennedy was planning on dropping Johnson from the Democratic ticket in the upcoming 1964 presidential election.

Presidency 1963–1969[link]

Foreign trips of Lyndon Johnson during his presidency.

Assassination of President John F. Kennedy[link]

Johnson being sworn in aboard Air Force One by Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes. On the right is Mrs. Kennedy; to the left is Mrs. Johnson; sitting down near the airplane window is Jack Valenti, White House aide. Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff, at bottom left, records the event with a dictaphone.

Johnson was sworn in as President on Air Force One at Love Field Airport in Dallas on November 22, 1963 two hours and eight minutes after President Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza in Dallas.^[33] He was sworn in by Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes, a family friend, making him the first President sworn in by a woman. He is also the only President to have been sworn in on Texas soil. Johnson did not swear on a Bible, as there were none on Air Force One; a Roman Catholic missal was found in Kennedy's desk and was used for the swearing-in ceremony.^[34] Johnson being sworn in as president has become the most famous photo ever taken aboard a presidential aircraft.^[35][36]

In the days following the assassination, Lyndon B. Johnson made an address to Congress: "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long."^[37] The wave of national grief following the assassination gave enormous momentum to Johnson's promise to carry out Kennedy's programs.

Johnson created a panel headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, known as the Warren Commission, to investigate Kennedy's assassination. The commission conducted hearings and concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination. Not everyone agreed with the Warren Commission, and numerous public and private investigations continued for decades after Johnson left office.^[38]

Johnson retained senior Kennedy appointees, some for the full term of his presidency. The late President's brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, with whom Johnson had a notoriously difficult relationship, remained in office for a few months until leaving in 1964, to run for the Senate.^[39] Robert F. Kennedy has been quoted as saying that LBJ was "mean, bitter, vicious—[an] animal in many ways...I think his reactions on a lot of things are correct... but I think he's got this other side of him and his relationship with human beings which makes it difficult unless you want to 'kiss his behind' all the time. That is what Bob McNamara suggested to me...if I wanted to get along."^[40]

1964 presidential election[link]

On September 7, 1964, Johnson's campaign managers for the 1964 presidential election broadcast the "Daisy ad". It portrayed a little girl picking petals from a daisy, counting up to ten. Then a baritone voice took over, counted down from ten to zero and the visual showed the explosion of a nuclear bomb. The message conveyed was that electing Barry Goldwater president held the danger of nuclear war. Although it only aired one time, it became an issue during the campaign. Johnson won the presidency by a landslide with 61 percent of the vote and the then-widest popular margin in the 20th century — more than 15 million votes (this was later surpassed by incumbent President Nixon's defeat of Senator McGovern in 1972).^[41] Johnson's popular vote margin of over 22 percentage points is a record that stands to this day.

President Johnson, Issue of 1973

In mid-1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was organized with the purpose of challenging Mississippi's all-white and anti-civil rights delegation to the Democratic National Convention of that year as not representative of all Mississippians. At the national convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey the MFDP claimed the seats for delegates for Mississippi, not on the grounds of the Party rules, but because the official Mississippi delegation had been elected by a primary conducted under Jim Crow laws in which blacks were excluded because of poll taxes, literacy tests, and even violence against black voters. The national Party's liberal leaders supported a compromise in which the white delegation and the MFDP would have an even division of the seats; Johnson was concerned that, while the regular Democrats of Mississippi would probably vote for Goldwater anyway, if the Democratic Party rejected the regular Democrats, he would lose the Democratic Party political structure that he needed to win in the South. Eventually, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Reuther and black civil rights leaders (including Roy Wilkins, Martin Luther King, and Bayard Rustin) worked out a compromise with MFDP leaders: the MFDP would receive two non-voting seats on the floor of the Convention; the regular Mississippi delegation would be required to pledge to support the party ticket; and no future Democratic convention would accept a delegation chosen by a discriminatory poll. When the leaders took the proposal back to the 64 members who had made the bus trip to Atlantic City, they voted it down. As MFDP Vice Chair Fannie Lou Hamer said, "We didn't come all the way up here to compromise for no more than we'd gotten here. We didn't come all this way for no two seats, 'cause all of us is tired." The failure of the compromise effort allowed the rest of the Democratic Party to conclude that the MFDP was simply being unreasonable, and they lost a great deal of their liberal support. After that, the convention went smoothly for Johnson without a searing battle over civil rights.^[42] Despite the landslide victory, Johnson, who carried the South as a whole in the election, lost the Deep South states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina, the first time a Democratic candidate had done so since Reconstruction.

Johnson won the presidency by a majority of 61 percent, ready to fulfill his earlier commitment to "carry forward the plans and programs of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Not because of our sorrow or sympathy, but because they are right."^[43]

Civil rights[link]

President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Among the guests behind him is Martin Luther King, Jr.

	Remarks upon Signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Public statement by Johnson of July 2, 1964 about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "Remarks upon Signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964" audio only
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

In conjunction with the civil rights movement, Johnson overcame southern resistance and convinced the Democratic-Controlled Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed most forms of racial segregation. John F. Kennedy originally proposed the civil rights bill in June 1963.^[44] In late October 1963, Kennedy officially called the House leaders to the White House to line up the necessary votes for passage.^[45][46] After Kennedy's death, Johnson took the initiative in finishing what Kennedy started and broke a filibuster by Southern Democrats in March 1964; as a result, this pushed the bill for passage in the Senate.^[47] Johnson signed the revised and stronger bill into law on July 2, 1964.^[47] Legend has it that, as he put down his pen, Johnson told an aide, "We have lost the South for a generation", anticipating a coming backlash from Southern whites against Johnson's Democratic Party. Moreover, Richard Nixon politically counterattacked with the Southern Strategy where it would "secure" votes for the Republican Party by grabbing the advocates of segregation as well as most of the Southern Democrats.^[48]

In 1965, he achieved passage of a second civil rights bill, the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in voting, thus allowing millions of southern blacks to vote for the first time. In accordance with the act, several states, "seven of the eleven southern states of the former confederacy" – Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia — were subjected to the procedure of preclearance in 1965, while Texas, home to the majority of the African American population at the time, followed in 1975.^[49]

After the murder of civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo, Johnson went on television to announce the arrest of four Ku Klux Klansmen implicated in her death. He angrily denounced the Klan as a "hooded society of bigots," and warned them to "return to a decent society before it's too late." Johnson was the first President to arrest and prosecute members of the Klan since Ulysses S. Grant about 93 years earlier.^[50] He turned the themes of Christian redemption to push for civil rights, thereby mobilizing support from churches North and South.^[51]

At the Howard University commencement address on June 4, 1965, he said that both the government and the nation needed to help achieve goals:

In 1967, Johnson nominated civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Immigration[link]

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Immigration Act of 1965 at Liberty Island as Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Senator Edward Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and others look on.

Johnson signed the Immigration Act of 1965,^[53] which substantially changed U.S. immigration policy toward non-Europeans.^[54] According to OECD, "While European-born immigrants accounted for nearly 60% of the total foreign-born population in 1970, they accounted for only 15% in 2000."^[55] Immigration doubled between 1965 and 1970, and doubled again between 1970 and 1990.^[22] Since the liberalization of immigration policy in 1965,^[56] the number of first-generation immigrants living in the United States has quadrupled,^[57] from 9.6 million in 1970, to about 38 million in 2007.^[58]

Great Society[link]

The Great Society program, with its name coined from one of Johnson's speeches,^[22] became Johnson's agenda for Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, Medicaid, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime, and removal of obstacles to the right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, enacted most of Johnson's recommendations.^[59]

After the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, for the first time a person who was not elderly or disabled could receive a living from the American government.^[60]

Federal funding for education[link]

Johnson had a lifelong commitment to the belief that education was the cure for both ignorance and poverty, and was an essential component of the American Dream, especially for minorities who endured poor facilities and tight-fisted budgets from local taxes.^[61] He made education a top priority of the Great Society, with an emphasis on helping poor children. After the 1964 landslide brought in many new liberal Congressmen, he had the votes for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. For the first time, large amounts of federal money went to public schools. In practice ESEA meant helping all public school districts, with more money going to districts that had large proportions of students from poor families (which included all the big cities).^[62] For the first time private schools (most of them Catholic schools in the inner cities) received services, such as library funding, comprising about 12 percent of the ESEA budget. As Dallek reports, researchers soon found that poverty had more to do with family background and neighborhood conditions than the quantity of education a child received. Early studies suggested initial improvements for poor kids helped by ESEA reading and math programs, but later assessments indicated that benefits faded quickly and left students little better off than those not in the programs. Johnson's second major education program was the Higher Education Act of 1965, which focused on funding for lower income students, including grants, work-study money, and government loans. He set up the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, to support humanists and artists (as the WPA once did). Although ESEA solidified Johnson's support among K-12 teachers' unions, neither the Higher Education Act nor the Endowments mollified the college professors and students growing increasingly uneasy with the war in Vietnam.^[63] In 1967, Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act to create educational television programs to supplement the broadcast networks.

"War on Poverty" and Medical Reform[link]

Truman (seated right) and his wife Bess (behind him) attend the signing of the Medicare Bill on July 30, 1965, by President Johnson.

In 1964, upon Johnson's request, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1964 and the Economic Opportunity Act, which was in association with the war on poverty. Johnson set in motion bills and acts,^[64] creating programs such as Head Start, food stamps, Work Study, Medicare and Medicaid, which still exist today.

The Medicare program was established on July 30, 1965, to offer cheaper medical services to the elderly,^[65] today covering tens of millions of Americans. Johnson gave the first two Medicare cards to former President Harry S. Truman and his wife Bess after signing the medicare bill at the Truman Library.