Background
Margaret was born on November 7, 1893 in Newburgh, New York, United States, the daughter of William Kernochan Leech and Rebecca Taggert.
(1860: The American capital is sprawling, fractured, squal...)
1860: The American capital is sprawling, fractured, squalid, colored by patriotism and treason, and deeply divided along the political lines that will soon embroil the nation in bloody conflict. Chaotic and corrupt, the young city is populated by bellicose congressmen, Confederate conspirators, and enterprising prostitutes. Soldiers of a volunteer army swing from the dome of the Capitol, assassins stalk the avenues, and Abraham Lincoln struggles to justify his presidency as the Union heads to war. Reveille in Washington focuses on the everyday politics and preoccupations of Washington during the Civil War. From the stench of corpse-littered streets to the plunging lace on Mary Lincoln’s evening gowns, Margaret Leech illuminates the city and its familiar figures—among them Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, William Seward, and Mary Surratt—in intimate and fascinating detail. Leech’s book remains widely recognized as both an impressive feat of scholarship and an uncommonly engrossing work of history.
https://www.amazon.com/Reveille-Washington-1860-1865-Review-Classics/dp/1590174461?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1590174461
(In the Days of McKinley is a book by Margaret Leech publi...)
In the Days of McKinley is a book by Margaret Leech published in 1959 by Harper & Brothers Publishers which won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for History. It is a Biography of the former American President William McKinley. (Wikipedia)
https://www.amazon.com/days-McKinley-Margaret-Leech/dp/B0006AVWVK?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0006AVWVK
Margaret was born on November 7, 1893 in Newburgh, New York, United States, the daughter of William Kernochan Leech and Rebecca Taggert.
Margaret Leech attended private schools in Newburgh and Poughkeepsie, New York. She then entered Vassar College, receiving her Bachelor of arts in 1915.
Upon graduation Pulitzer went to New York to work for the Condé Nast publishing company where she was employed responding to subscribers' complaints. She also worked in advertising and did publicity work for World War I fundraising organizations, eventually joining the American Committee for Devastated France. While working on this committee in Europe she contributed articles to American periodicals.
Upon returning to the United States after the war, she began writing novels. Leech's first novel was The Back of the Book (1924). The 1926 novel Tin Wedding related the concerns and reflections of a woman on the occasion of her tenth wedding anniversary. A mother's overbearing love for her child became the focus of The Feathered Nest (1928). The novels were generally praised for their sound characterization, attention to detail, and stylistic clarity.
In 1927, in collaboration with Heywood Broun, she wrote the biography Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord. She and Broun wrote separate chapters. The book was lauded for its careful attention to detail, its fairness, as well as its charm and humor.
Leech's marriage to Ralph Pulitzer brought her into contact with a group of the most renowned literary figures of the day. Pulitzer's position as the publisher of the New York World allowed her to enlarge this illustrious circle.
After her success with novels, Leech attempted to write for the theater. The play Divided by Three, written by Leech with Beatrice Kaufman and starring Judith Anderson, opened in the fall of 1934. The reviews were scathing. Twenty-five years later, Leech was to say, "We had every advantage there was, except talent. "
From 1935 to 1940 Leech studied the details of day-to-day life in Washington, during the Civil War and published in 1941 Reveille in Washington, 1860-1865.
After twelve years of research, Leech returned to the subject of her childhood poem in In the Days of McKinley, published in 1959. She wrote the book because she found that no serious biography of McKinley had yet been written. The historian John Morton Blum called it "a first-rate study of a second-rate President. " Margaret Pulitzer had been engaged in research for a biography of another assassinated president, James Garfield. The book was published posthumously in 1978 as The Garfield Orbit.
Leech died of a stroke in New York City at age 80.
(1860: The American capital is sprawling, fractured, squal...)
(In the Days of McKinley is a book by Margaret Leech publi...)
Margaret married to Ralph Pulitzer on August 1, 1928. He died on June 13, 1939. They had two children, one of whom died in infancy.