Dori, welcome to WQED collection, and I thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview.

Thank you for having me.

I wanted to start off by asking you about the incredible collection that will now be part of our Heinz History Center, and why Pittsburgh was chosen for the collection.

Oh, Pittsburgh was chosen for the collection for a lot of reasons, but I would say number one is, my father, David McCullough, was born and raised in Pittsburgh.

And though he essentially left when he was 17 years old, he loved Pittsburgh his whole life.

And he never was far from Pittsburgh in his heart.

And he was very involved in, the establishment of the Heinz History Center, where it is now.

And he really believed very much in the mission and, in the leadership and and in the place.

I think it's so great that he had that love for Pittsburgh all of his life.

And I wondered if you had any personal favorites in the collection.

Oh, I have a lot of favorites in the collection.

It's really an incredible collection.

There are a lot of my favorites are in the book History Matters, which I think we're going to be talking about later.

Those are many of my, sort of more formal favorite pieces in the collection, but there are a lot of personal items in the collection, that I really am interested in.

Lots of lists that he kept, drawings and diagrams that he did when he was writing.

He was very much of a, visual person.

And as he was, constructing sort of the architecture of a book, he often would draw pictures, about how a chapter was going to go or what the structure of the book was going to be, or big diagrams.

And I love those.

The collection of correspondence is really extensive and incredible.

There are letters, from all kinds of important politicians and artists and writers and then people in his own life, personal letters.

It's so impressive that there are not one, but two Pulitzer Prizes in the collection.

But the thing that I read about in the book, and the thing that I have to say that I had immediately like, homed in on, is the the typewriter, the royal typewriter, and that he wrote so much of his work on that typewriter.

Tell us a little bit about it.

Well, the typewriter, he wrote every book on that typewriter he bought.

It used, in 1965.

And that was always what he used.

He never used an electric typewriter, never used a computer.

He used that one typewriter.

And he loved it.

He loved the, tactile, feeling that he was pounding the keys and making something and pulling the paper out.

He loved the ding at the end of a line and, you know, hitting the crank.

He also loved that sometimes when the power would go out, that he could keep writing, and he never would notice that, anything was amiss anywhere else.

And he didn't lose any time if the power ever went out.

It was serviced regularly.

And he always said every 50,000 miles he would have the typewriter, serviced.

But he also he was not a very mechanical person.

He didn't fix cars.

He didn't fix bikes.

He didn't do that.

But he could.

One time he fixed his typewriter.

Something was wrong.

The person Danny DeRosa, who usually worked on it was not available, and he was able to fix it with a rubber band and keep going as long as he needed to go until it could get fixed.

So he he liked that, it was something he could understand technically.

I read the short piece in the book about the typewriter and his history with it.

I was, I have to say, one of the things that most amazed me was that he could still find ribbons for it.

Yes.

It became more and more difficult, but he really he had a a person devoted to manual typewriters who I just mentioned, Danny DeRosa, who helped him find whatever he needed to get, the ribbons and the kind of paper that he liked.

He liked to use a certain kind of, second sheet, which is like a newsprint, yellow newsprint.

And that became hard to find, but he was able to find it and keep going with it.

And, and, we're very happy that the collection includes, because the Heinz History Center is not just a library, but it is a museum.

It has a library, but it is a museum that they would take, and take care of all of these artifacts as well as the papers.

And so that included the typewriter and were excited to have it cared for and hopefully on display at the museum.

Their curators and caretakers are, amongst the best.

And they, they the people of Pittsburgh.

So treasure that space and the items that are in it.

So I can't imagine, like, your dad stuff won't be a huge hit with everybody who loves history and loves the History Center.

Your visit to Pittsburgh on November 19th will promote the new book History Matters.

Tell us a little bit.

Tell the viewers what they can expect.

A little preview of the book.

Well, the book, came about because, my parents both died in 2022.

And when a creative person dies, you have to, go through all of the the logistics of intellectual property and I included it in intellectual property are collections of papers, the archives.

And so that was my job to go through his archives, which are tremendous.

And during the course of that, his publisher, Simon and Schuster, who was always his publisher, had a wonderful relationship with them, came to me periodically and they would say, is there a book here?

Do you think there's a book?

And I would say, no, no, no, I don't think so, because I didn't want to do it.

I didn't want was it was painful and it was hard to do.

They had just died.

But last year, also understanding it's the 250th anniversary of the country coming up, I gathered myself together and asked Mike Hill, who was my father's long term researcher, to work with me, to co edit this book and put it together.

And so it's a collection of pieces that, either have never been published or, were published for very small, limited or particular audiences.

And it has speeches and essays and tributes to people who he admired.

Some lists, which I do like the lists, and, I'm very happy with it.

There are some favorite parts in there for me.

I love the piece on Harry Truman.

I'm.

He's always been someone I admired because he desegregated the troops and there's the great article about the the typewriter that we mentioned.

But I think the thing one of the things I enjoyed the most was the Paris Review interview, and he talked about how when he started writing the Johnstown Flood, he was inspired to write a book that he wanted to read.

And I wondered if that also inspires you.

Do you ever write things because you want to read them?

Yes, I did the the, first book that I did was a collection of letters from great Americans to their children.

And I, I did that, you know, about 20 years ago.

And I did that because I wanted to read that.

I found myself, when I write, when I'm reading a biography or, history, I'm captivated by the family stories.

And I actually went to my father and said, you should do this.

I want you to do this.

And I realized then also that he he liked his own ideas.

He wasn't going to do it.

And so, because I did that was one that I did want to read.

I did do that book.

You've also written a children's books now?

Yes, I've written a children's book and a novel.

And now this collection.

I think if I do a, self-help and a cookbook, I'll cover every genre.

You'll have one of each.

Yeah.

It was I, I connected with, one of the things in the foreword that you wrote about the daunting task of going through your father's papers and the rooms full of boxes, some of them were very organized, and some of them weren't, I, you know, I've had to do that for relatives that have passed away.

How did you gather yourself so that you could have the purpose, the really clear purpose of knowing what you wanted and what you wanted to include it.

That was it.

That you're touching on something that was really one of the hardest parts to know what it was.

And so we approached it very much with those, the guidelines that I just described, things that hadn't been published or had been published for very small audiences.

So that helped to narrow things down.

And then Mike and I really wanted to, you know, when you're doing a collection like this, you have the luxury of choosing what you want to do and what pieces you want to include.

And we wanted more of him.

We wanted more of the feeling of David McCullough.

I worked with, you know, with his daughter.

So I lived with him for many, many years, was his daughter my whole life.

And I also worked with him for 30 years.

And Mike worked with him for 40 years.

So we both were missing him.

And we wanted more of the feeling of what it was like to have dinner with him, to sit on the back porch and, you know, have coffee with him in the morning.

And, that's what we felt was strongly pieces that conveyed more about him and his broad, broad interests.

He was yes, he was a historian, but he was so interested in so many other things.

He was interested in technology.

He was interested in music, birds, dogs, architecture, almost.

You name it.

He was interested in it.

And I think above all, he was interested in people and people's stories.

Well, I think if you were a fan of your father's work or just a fan of the man that he was, you will totally enjoy History Matters and the very different stories and takes on there.

And like you said, the sharing of the things that were personal and important to him.

I'm looking forward to the event on the 19th.

I know you're going to have an interview with Andy Masich and Andy gives a really good interview.

So thank you so much for taking the time and for sharing this work with us.

I'm really happy we met you.

Thank you.

And I'm looking forward to getting to Pittsburgh.