William B. Pickett | |
---|---|
Born | William Beatty Pickett March 12, 1940 Crawfordsville, Indiana, U.S. |
Board member of | Indiana Association of Historians, Indiana Council for History Education |
Awards | Fulbright Fellowship (1989) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Carleton College, Indiana University |
Thesis | Homer E. Capehart: The Making of a Hoosier Senator [1] (1974) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Historian |
Sub-discipline | U.S. political and military history,Indiana history,Dwight D. Eisenhower,Homer E. Capehart,history of the Internet |
Institutions | Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology |
Notable works | Dwight David Eisenhower and American Power , Eisenhower Decides To Run:Presidential Politics and Cold War Strategy |
William Beatty Pickett (born March 12,1940) is an American historian and professor emeritus at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute,Indiana. He is known as an authority on President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Indiana Senator Homer E. Capehart,and is the author of several well-regarded books on U.S. history including Dwight David Eisenhower and American Power [2] and Eisenhower Decides To Run:Presidential Politics and Cold War Strategy. [3] [4] [5]
Pickett was born in Crawfordsville,Indiana. He earned his bachelor's degree at Carleton College in Northfield,Minnesota in 1962,and both a master's degree (in 1968) and doctorate (in 1974) at Indiana University. [6] He served as a lieutenant in the United States Naval Reserve from 1962 to 1966. [7]
After postgraduate work at Indiana University in the late 1960s,Pickett was a professor of history at Rose-Hulman for 35 years. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Nanzan University in Nagoya,Japan in 1989–90,lecturing on American history, [8] and taught American history on U.S. military bases in Korea as a visiting professor for the University of Maryland. [9] He was an educational consultant to the American University of Kyrgyzstan (now called American University of Central Asia) in 2002. [10] In 1992–93,he served as president of the Indiana Association of Historians. [11] In 2006,he co-founded the Web History Center,a hub for archiving and preserving early Internet history,with branches in Indiana at Rose-Hulman and at California's Computer History Museum. [12] [13] Two of his lectures about Eisenhower were featured on C-SPAN's Book TV series in 2000 [14] and 2002. [15] Since 2016,he has been a member of the historical advisory panel for the Eisenhower Memorial in Washington,D.C. [16] Pickett retired from teaching in 2007 but continues to write.
Over the course of his career,Pickett produced a number of books,journal articles,reviews,and oral histories. Pickett wrote his doctoral thesis on Indiana Sen. Homer Capehart,and his 1990 book Homer E. Capehart:A Senator's Life was the first scholarly biography of the politician. [17] Homer E. Capehart won an Award of Merit from the Ohio Museums Association in 1990. [18] Pickett's work on Eisenhower included two full-length books. Reviewer Lawrence S. Conner called 1995's Dwight David Eisenhower and American Power a "concise and readable" work that helped to revise previous historians' "harsh assessments of Eisenhower." [19] Writing in Presidential Studies Quarterly,Herbert Parmet called the book a "gracefully written," more contemporary view of Eisenhower as a politician who "understood and moved with the rhythms of history." [20] Pickett's 2000 book Eisenhower Decides to Run was one of the first scholarly looks at the 1952 presidential campaign, [21] and focused particularly on Eisenhower's political reputation. [22] Writing for Michigan State University's H-Net forum,Steven Wagner called the book "required reading for Eisenhower specialists" that helped to overturn the older consensus that Eisenhower was only a passive player in his own political career,and made the case that long-simmering political ambitions led to his consciously seeking the presidency in order to block the ambitions of Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft. [23] Reviewer Thomas R. Maddux wrote that Pickett's book challenged the "standard view advanced by Stephen Ambrose and others" that Eisenhower was a reluctant candidate,positing instead that Eisenhower was cautious after witnessing the controversial political rise of his military rival Douglas MacArthur,and was a more skilled behind-the-scenes leader than generally acknowledged. [24]
Pickett also conducted several collections of oral interviews on Capehart [25] and the histories of Terre Haute and surrounding Vigo County [26] and Rose-Hulman. [27]
Rose–Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT) is a private university in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was founded in 1874 with only three bachelor's degree programs. It has since grown to twelve academic departments with over thirty undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technology, and engineering management, leading to bachelor's and master's degrees.
Homer Earl Capehart was an American businessman and politician from Indiana. After serving in the United States Army during World War I, he became involved in the manufacture of record players and other products. Capehart later served 18 years (1945–1963) in the U.S. Senate as a Republican from Indiana. Initially an isolationist on foreign policy, he took a more internationalist stance in later years; he retired after a narrow defeat for a fourth term in 1962.
Vigo County is a county on the western border of the U.S. state of Indiana. According to the 2020 United States Census, it had a population of 106,153. Its county seat is Terre Haute.
Terre Haute is a city in and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, about 5 miles (8 km) east of the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 58,389 and its metropolitan area had a population of 168,716.
Indiana State University (ISU) is a public university in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was founded in 1865 and offers over 100 undergraduate majors and more than 75 graduate and professional programs. Indiana State is classified among "D/PU: Doctoral/Professional Universities".
Anton "Tony" Hulman Jr. was an American businessman from Terre Haute, Indiana, who bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1945 and brought racing back to the famous race course after a four-year hiatus following World War II.
Samuel Foster Hulbert was an American scientist working in Ceramics Science and Biomaterials. He carried out biomaterial work in artificial knees, hips, and dental prostheses. He served as president of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology for 28 years. He was born at Adams Center, New York.
The Terre Haute House was a historic hotel in downtown Terre Haute, Indiana, United States.
The Draft Eisenhower movement was a widespread political movement that eventually persuaded Dwight D. Eisenhower, former Chief of Staff of the United States Army, to contest the presidency of the United States.
Hulman & Company is an American private, family-owned, company founded in 1850 by Francis T. Hulman as a wholesale foods supplier of groceries, tobacco, and liquor, headquartered in Terre Haute, Indiana. Throughout the early half of the 20th century, Hulman & Co. became nationally known for its Clabber Girl baking powder which it began producing in 1899. In 1945, the company purchased the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in what many thought was an unusual investment for a company with a rich history in the food and beverage industry and owned the speedway until its sale to Roger Penske in 2019.
Robert Hugh Ferrell was an American historian. He authored more than 60 books on topics including the U.S. presidency, World War I, and U.S. foreign policy and diplomacy. One of the country's leading historians, Ferrell was widely considered the preeminent authority on the administration of Harry S. Truman, and also wrote books about half a dozen other 20th-century presidents. He was thought by many in the field to be the "dean of American diplomatic historians", a title he disavowed.
Terre Haute Action Track is a half-mile dirt racetrack located at the Vigo County, Indiana, fairgrounds on U.S. Route 41 along the south side of Terre Haute, Indiana. The track hosts annual United States Automobile Club (USAC) midget car, sprint car and Silver Crown events. Notable drivers that have competed at the track include A. J. Foyt, Jeff Gordon, Parnelli Jones, and Tony Stewart. The track has held events sanctioned by USAC, its predecessor American Automobile Association (AAA), and the World of Outlaws.
Ida Husted Harper was an American author, journalist, columnist, and suffragist, as well as the author of a three-volume biography of suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony at Anthony's request. Harper also co-edited and collaborated with Anthony on volume four (1902) of the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage and completed the project by solo writing volumes five and six (1922) after Anthony's death. In addition, Harper served as secretary of the Indiana chapter of the National Woman Suffrage Association, became a prominent figure in the women's suffrage movement in the U.S., and wrote columns on women's issues for numerous newspapers across the United States. Harper traveled extensively, delivered lectures in support of women's rights, handled press relations for a women's suffrage amendment in California, headed the National American Woman Suffrage Association's national press bureau in New York City and the editorial correspondence department of the Leslie Bureau of Suffrage Education in Washington, D.C., and chaired the press committee of the International Council of Women.
Terre Haute Lodge No. 19, F&AM is a lodge of Freemasons in Terre Haute, Indiana. It is the oldest existing organization in the city and in Vigo County with the exception of Vigo County Government.
Juliet A. Peddle (1899–1979) was an American modernist architect who was the first woman architect licensed by the state of Indiana and a cofounder of the Women's Architectural Club of Chicago.
Terre Haute Regional Airport is a civil-military public airport in Terre Haute, in Vigo County, Indiana, six miles (9.7 km) east of the city center. The FAA's National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a general aviation facility. It is also the location of Hulman Field Air National Guard Base of the Indiana Air National Guard.
This bibliography of Dwight D. Eisenhower is a list of published works about Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States.
Eisenhower Decides to Run: Presidential Politics and Cold War Strategy is a 2000 book by historian William B. Pickett, a professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. It follows his 1995 Eisenhower biography Dwight David Eisenhower and American Power, and looks specifically at the reasons behind the five-star general's fateful choice to enter politics and become a candidate for the Republican nomination during the 1952 presidential campaign.
Dwight David Eisenhower and American Power is a 1995 biography of the U.S. president and military leader by historian William B. Pickett, a professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was published as part of Harlan Davidson's American Biographical History Series.