MARGARET LEECH

Born in 1893 in Newburgh, New York, Margaret Kernochan Leech was one of the foremost American historians of her time and the first woman to win two Pulitzer Prizes in history. Reveille in Washington (1941), an account of life in the Union Capitol during the civil war years, was an immediate best seller and received a Pulitzer Prize in 1942. In the Days of McKinley (1959), a portrait of the presidency and the nation at the turn of the century, won the Bancroft Prize in American History, the Pulitzer Prize in History, and an Ohioana Award in 1960. Both books were Book of the Month Club selections.

Leech moved to New York City and began working as a writer after graduating from Vassar College in 1915. She joined the editorial staff at House and Garden, and did publicity work for World War I fund-raising organizations before leaving for Europe, where she spent several years working for Anne Morgan’s Committee For Devastated France and contributing articles to American periodicals.

Leech began her literary career as a novelist and short story writer. Her three novels, The Back of the Book (1924), Tin Wedding (1926), and The Feathered Nest (1928), all won critical acclaim. Her short fiction was published in Harpers Magazine, The Bookman, and Century Magazine, and her short story “Manicure” won a 1929 O. Henry Award. While writing fiction, Leech continued to work as a journalist, contributing articles to The New York Times and The New York World, among others.

Leech was a member of the Algonquin round table, where she formed life-long friendships. The Algonquin writers appreciated her “trigger-fast wit and hearty appetite for the group’s habitual gaiety,” Marc Connelly recalled (Book of the Month Club News, 1959). Leech’s first historical work, Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord (1927), a biography of the famous vice crusader, was written in collaboration with fellow Algonquinite Heywood Broun, and in 1934 Leech collaborated with another round table writer, Beatrice Kauffman, on a play, Divided By Three. The production starred Judith Anderson, Hedda Hopper, and a young Jimmy Stuart.

Commenting on the transition from fiction to history writing, Leech told The New York Times: “Writing [history] requires much that is necessary in fiction. That is, you must have your own light, your own point of view for each scene.” (1941).

In 1928 Margaret Leech married Ralph Pulitzer, editor and publisher of The New York World (Pulitzer’s father, Joseph, founded the Pulitzer Prizes in 1917 with an endowment to Columbia University, which administers them). They had two daughters, Margaret, who died in infancy, and Susan.

Leech was working on a new history, The Garfield Orbit, and had completed the first eight chapters at the time of her death in 1974. The book was finished by Harry J. Brown, and published in 1978.

Margaret Leech is survived by two grandchildren.