Editing Geoffrey C. Ward

{{Short description|American writer and historian}}
{{other people||Geoff Ward (disambiguation){{!}}Geoff Ward}}
[[File:Geoffrey C. Ward.jpg|thumb|Geoffrey C. Ward]]
'''Geoffrey Champion Ward''' (born 1940) is an American editor, author, historian and writer of scripts for American history documentaries for public television. He is the author or co-author of 19 books, including 10 companion books to the documentaries he has written. He is the winner of seven [[Emmy Awards]].

== Biography ==

===Youth===
Ward was born in [[Newark, Ohio]], and is a graduate of [[Oberlin College]] (1962), where he majored in art.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title=Interview with Geoffrey Ward|url=https://www.maxraskin.com/interviews/geoffrey-ward|access-date=2021-09-17|website=Interviews with Max Raskin|language=en-US}}</ref>  He had initially planned to be a painter.<ref name=":0" /> His father was F. Champion Ward, educator and a vice-president of the [[Ford Foundation]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/obituaries/18ward.html|title=F. C. Ward, Who Helped Devise 'Genius Award,' Dies at 96|last=Hevesi|first=Dennis|date=18 June 2007|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=8 July 2012}}</ref> Ward spent some of his boyhood years in India.<ref name=":0" /> Ward's great-grandfather was [[Ferdinand Ward]], a 19th-century swindler whose [[ponzi scheme]] led to a financial crash which bankrupted many investors, including [[Ulysses S. Grant]] and [[Thomas Nast]]. Ward wrote a book about the story of his great-grandfather, ''A Disposition to be Rich,'' in 2012.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Stiles |first=T. J. |date=2012-06-29 |title=Dreams of Prosperity |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/books/review/a-disposition-to-be-rich-by-geoffrey-c-ward.html |access-date=2022-11-27 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

===Career===

====Early career====
{{expand section|date=September 2012}}
Ward was the founding editor of ''Audience Magazine'' (1970–1973) and the editor of ''[[American Heritage Magazine]]'' (1977–1982). His 1989 biography of [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], ''A First-class Temperament: the Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt'', won the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]] and the [[Francis Parkman Prize]] of the Society of American Historians and was a finalist for the [[Pulitzer Prize]].

====Later career====
Ward has been a long-time collaborator of American documentary filmmaker [[Ken Burns]]. Ward describes being asked to write the script for ''[[Huey Long (film)|Huey Long]]'' after meeting Burns at his house in Walpole, New Hampshire.<ref name=":0" />  The principal writer of the television mini-series ''[[The Civil War (documentary)|The Civil War]]'' (1990), Ward has collaborated with its co-producer [[Ken Burns]] on most of the documentaries he has made since, including ''[[Jazz (documentary)|Jazz]]'', ''[[Baseball (documentary)|Baseball]]'', ''[[The War (documentary)|The War]]'', and ''[[The Vietnam War (TV series)|The Vietnam War]]''. The films with Burns have garnered him five [[Emmy Award]]s. He has won an additional two Emmys for ''The Kennedys'' (1992), and  ''TR, The Story of Theodore Roosevelt'' (1996).<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/about/award/broadcast |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304210802/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/about/award/broadcast |archive-date=2016-03-04 | title=AMERICAN EXPERIENCE has been honored with over 265 awards including the following|website=[[PBS]] }}</ref>
His script for the documentary ''[[Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson]]'', won the [[Writers Guild of America]] Award in 2005,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wga.org/subpage_newsevents.aspx?id%3D1493 |title=Tv and radio nominees |access-date=2013-10-28 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131012215422/http://www.wga.org/subpage_newsevents.aspx?id=1493 |archive-date=2013-10-12 }}</ref> and the accompanying book won the 2006 [[William Hill Sports Book of the Year]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/boxing/6189040.stm |title=Johnson biog named book of year  |work=[[BBC News]] |author=Staff writer |author-link=Staff writer |date=27 November 2006 |access-date=November 26, 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/2351279/Johnsons-tale-floors-five-rivals.html |title=Johnson's tale floors five rivals |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |author=Andrew Baker |date=28 November 2006 |access-date=November 26, 2012}}</ref> and the [[Anisfield-Wolf Award]] for best biography.<ref>[http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/Anisfeld-Wolf Book Awards]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

In 2006, the [[Organization of American Historians]] gave Ward their [[Friend of History Award]] for his outstanding contributions to American history: {{blockquote|Over the last twenty years Geoffrey Ward's writings on American History have had a greater influence and reached a wider audience than those of any other American writer and historian. [His] work is always his own, but he has also helped free ideas that otherwise might have been imprisoned in the academy and helped them find a wider world. He has helped academic historians understand the possibilities, limits, and demands of what has become the medium through which most Americans now get their history."<ref>Organization of American Historians Awards Ceremony and Presidential Address Booklet 2006, page 4.  [http://www.www.oah.org/ Organization of American Historians] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120706162428/http://www.www.oah.org/ |date=2012-07-06 }}</ref>}}

The 2011 Burns/Ward collaboration, ''[[Prohibition (miniseries)|Prohibition]]'', brought Ward his seventh Emmy for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.emmys.tv/awards/64th-primetime-emmy-awards| title=64th Primetime Emmy® Awards| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120116065840/http://www.emmys.tv:80/awards/64th-primetime-emmy-awards| archive-date=2012-01-16}}</ref>  Since that project, he worked with Ken Burns on ''[[The Roosevelts (miniseries)|The Roosevelts: An Intimate History]]'', a seven-part documentary miniseries depicting the lives of [[Theodore Roosevelt]], [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], and [[Eleanor Roosevelt]], (broadcast on PBS in September 2014), and a multi-part TV series "[[The Vietnam War (film)|The Vietnam War]]", with [[Lynn Novick]] and Ken Burns (broadcast on PBS in September 2017).

In 2012, Ward published a biography of his great-grandfather [[Ferdinand Ward]] (1851–1925), known as the greatest swindler of the Gilded Age. ''A Disposition to be Rich'' was written with the assistance of private family materials.

=== India ===
Ward spent some of his boyhood years in India and has remained involved with India and in Indian issues. Working and writing about the ongoing struggle to save the Bengal tiger in the wild has meant friendships with great tiger men like [[Fateh Singh Rathore]]<ref>Fateh Singh Rathore, the 'Tiger Guru,' Dies at 73 - NYTimes.com</ref> and [[Billy Arjan Singh]].<ref>''Tiger-Wallahs: Encounters with the Men Who Tried to Save the Greatest of the Cats'' (with Diane Raines Ward), HarperCollins, 1993</ref>  His essays and pieces on India have appeared in a wide array of publications, including ''[[GEO (magazine)|Geo]]'', ''[[National Audubon Society#Audubon Magazine|Audubon]]'', ''[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]]'', ''[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]]'', ''[[Aperture (magazine)|Aperture]]'' and others.  In 2011, he wrote an introduction for the book ''Varanasi: Portrait of a Civilization,'' (Collins, India,) by the photographer ''Raghu Rai,'' with whom he has collaborated on magazine pieces. He is currently at work on a book about the partition of the Indian subcontinent.<ref name="book review">{{cite news |work=New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/books/review/india-becoming-by-akash-kapur.html |author=Geoffrey C. Ward |title=State of Paradox |date=May 25, 2012 |access-date=May 25, 2012}}</ref>

=== Jazz ===
Ward is involved in the world of jazz and has collaborated with [[Wynton Marsalis]]<ref>Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life (With Wynton Marsalis) Random House, 2008</ref> and the ''Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.'' After the documentary ''[[Jazz (documentary)|Jazz]]'' was aired on public television, in an interview in the New York Times, Ward spoke of playing ''West End Blues'' by [[Louis Armstrong]], as a 15-year-old student, so often that the bartender in the Paris cafe across the street from his student housing called him 'Satchmo':  "I must have played it a thousand times," he remembered. "I think jazz music is so important to this country.... I find these characters, Armstrong, Ellington, working in a Jim Crow world, genuinely heroic.""<ref>New York Times, January 12, 2001, pg. B2</ref>

== Personal life ==
Ward is married to the writer<ref>Water Wars: Drought, Flood, Folly and the Politics of Thirst, Riverhead Books, 2003 and 2012</ref> and social/environmental activist<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.hornstohavana.org/building-bridges| title=Building Bridges India| publisher=[[Prakratik Society]]| location=Rajasthan, India}}</ref> Diane Raines Ward. He has three children.

When he was nine years old, Ward contracted [[poliomyelitis]], and wears leg braces.<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/arts/television/the-roosevelts-documentary-series-on-pbs.html?_r=2 'The Roosevelts', Documentary Series on PBS - The New York Times]</ref> He describes hearing [[Louis Armstrong]]'s recording of "[[West End Blues]]" on the radio while in the hospital and noted its profound impact on his life.<ref name=":0" /> He later cited Franklin Roosevelt as a source of inspiration on how to overcome his handicap.<ref>[http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/63186-revisiting-the-roosevelts-pw-talks-with-geoffrey-c-ward.html Revisiting the Roosevelts: PW Talks With Geoffrey C. Ward]</ref> When interviewed for ''The Roosevelts'', Ward "was determined not to get emotional", as Ken Burns said later, when discussing the "terror" felt by FDR during his ordeal in 1921; Burns did not mention Ward's disability on camera, but he had waited until the end of their interview before getting to questions on FDR's polio, at which point Ward "was taken aback and the emotions caught him".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/pov/blog/docsoup/2014/09/ken-burnss-the-roosevelts-the-truth-outside-the-frame/ |title=Ken Burns's 'The Roosevelts': The Truth Outside the Frame {{!}} Doc Soup {{!}} POV Blog {{!}} PBS |website=[[PBS]] |access-date=2017-08-28 |archive-date=2017-04-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170413155412/http://www.pbs.org/pov/blog/docsoup/2014/09/ken-burnss-the-roosevelts-the-truth-outside-the-frame/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Ward considers British broadcaster and naturalist [[David Attenborough]] to be "the best television writer in the history of the medium."<ref name=":0" />

Ward describes himself as a "lifelong liberal Democrat."<ref name=":0" />

==Works==

===Books===
*''Lincoln's Thought and the Present'' (1976), [[Sangamon State University]]
*''Treasures of the World: The Maharajas'' (1983), [[Time Life]], [[New York City|New York]]
*''Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1905'' (1985), [[Harper & Row]]; New York 
*''A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt'' (1989), Harper & Row.<ref>Winner, National Book Critics Circle and Los Angeles Times Awards for Best Biography, the Francis Parkman Award of the Society of American Historians, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, 1990</ref>
*''The Civil War: An Illustrated History,'' (1990), with [[Ric Burns|Ric]] and Ken Burns; based upon PBS television series, [[Alfred A. Knopf]] 
*''American Originals: The Private Worlds of Some Singular Men and Women'' (1991), [[HarperCollins]]
*''Tiger-Wallahs: Encounters with the Men Who Tried to Save the Greatest of the Cats'' (1993), with Diane Raines Ward; HarperCollins
*''Baseball: An Illustrated History'' (1994), with Ken Burns; Alfred A. Knopf
*''Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of the Intimate Friendship Between Franklin D. Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley'' (1995), [[Houghton Mifflin]]
*''The West: An Illustrated History'' (1997), [[Little, Brown & Co]]
*''The Year of the Tiger'' (1998), with Michael Nichols; [[National Geographic Books]]
*''Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony'' (1999), with Ken Burns; Alfred A. Knopf
*''Jazz: A History of America's Music'' (2000), with Ken Burns; Alfred A. Knopf 
*''Mark Twain'' (2001), with Dayton Duncan; Alfred A. Knopf 
*''Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson'' (2004); Alfred A. Knopf<ref>Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, 2005; William Hill Sports Book of the Year, 2006</ref>
*''The War: An Intimate History'' (2007), with Ken Burns; Alfred A. Knopf
*''Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life'' (2008), with Wynton Marsalis; [[Random House]]
*''A Disposition to be Rich: How a Small-Town Pastor's Son Ruined an American President, Brought on a Wall Street Crash and Made Himself the Best-Hated Man in the United States'' (2012); Alfred A. Knopf
*''The Roosevelts: An Intimate History'' (2014) with Ken Burns; Alfred A. Knopf
*''The Vietnam War: An Intimate History'' (2017) Alfred A. Knopf

===Documentary film scripts===
;'''With Ken Burns and Florentine Films; shown on Public Television''':
* ''[[The U.S. and the Holocaust]]'' (2022; Emmy Award, 2024)
* ''[[The Vietnam War (TV series)|The Vietnam War]]''  (2017)
* ''[[The Roosevelts (miniseries)|The Roosevelts: An Intimate History]]''  (2014)
* ''[[Prohibition (miniseries)|Prohibition]]'' (2011, Emmy Award)
* ''[[The War (2007 TV series)|The War]]'' (2007; Emmy Award, 2007)
* ''[[Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson]]''  (2005 Emmy Award, 2005)
* ''[[Mark Twain (film)|Mark Twain]]'' (with Dayton Duncan, 2002)
* ''[[Jazz (TV series)|Jazz]]''  (2001)
* ''[[Not for Ourselves Alone]]'' (1999)
* ''Frank Lloyd Wright''  (1998)
* ''[[Thomas Jefferson (film)|Thomas Jefferson]]'' (1997)
* ''[[The West (1996 film)|The West]]''  (with Dayton Duncan, 1996)
* ''[[Baseball (TV series)|Baseball]]'' (principal writer 1994; Emmy Award, 1995)
* ''[[Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio]]'' (writer, 1991)
* ''[[The Civil War (TV series)|The Civil War]]''  (principal writer, 1990; Emmy Award, 1991)
* ''[[Thomas Hart Benton (film)|Thomas Hart Benton]]'' (writer,1989)
* ''[[The Congress (1988 film)|The Congress]]'' (contributing writer,1989)
* ''[[The Statue of Liberty (film)|The Statue of Liberty]]'' (co-writer, 1985)
* ''[[Huey Long (film)|Huey Long]]'' (writer, 1985)

;'''For the [[American Experience]] Series, [[WGBH-TV]]'''
* ''Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided''  (with David Grubin, 2001)
* ''TR'' (writer with David Grubin, 1996. Emmy Award)
* ''The Last Boss''  (writer, with Barak Goodman, 1996)
* ''The Kennedys'' (principal writer, 1992; Emmy Award)
* ''Reminiscing in Tempo'', (principal writer, 1991)
* ''Lindbergh'' (writer, 1990)
* ''Nixon'' (principal writer, 1990; Writers Guild Award)

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/filmmakers/ward.html PBS bio] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130503032356/http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/filmmakers/ward.html |date=2013-05-03 }}
* {{IMDb name|0911552}}
*{{C-SPAN|39424}}

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[[Category:1940 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Oberlin College alumni]]
[[Category:University of Chicago Laboratory Schools alumni]]
[[Category:20th-century American historians]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American historians]]
[[Category:21st-century American male writers]]
[[Category:Primetime Emmy Award winners]]
[[Category:Documentary war filmmakers]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:National Book Critics Circle Award winners]]