DR. CAROL GELDERMAN

Professor Emeritus
Ph.D.
Northwestern University

Carol Gelderman received her Ph.D. from Northwestern University, where she also received her Masters degree. Originally hired by the University of New Orleans to teach modern drama, she is today Distinguished Professor of English. Before receiving her degrees, she worked for the American Embassy in Londong for a year, and she also worked in public television in Chicago, conducting on-air interviews of visiting VIPs for a show called Profile Chicago. During her academic career, Dr. Gelderman has authored eight books, including three biographies: Henry Ford, The Wayward Capitalist; Mary McCarthy, A Life; and Louis Auchincloss, A Writer's Life. She also has a strong interest in politics and government, as reflected in her book All The Presidents' Words: The Bully Pulpit and the Creation of the Virtual Presidency. She has written dozens of articles on topics as varied as theatre, biography, politics, and mutual funds.

SELECTED REVIEWS:

All the Presidents' Words: The Bully Pulpit and the Creation of the Virtual Presidency (Walker and Co., 1997):

"Carol Gelderman has produced a colorful, backstage look at presidential speechwriting that shows the dangers of divorcing rhetoric from policymaking. It's fun, fascinating and informative."
Walter Isaacson, editor, Time and author of Kissinger: A Biography

"Witty and wise, full of insights into how our presidents use their speeches to make policy, to communicate, to persuade, most of all to lead. This is an important book on the American presidency in the 20th century. As a bonus, it is a delight to read."
Stephen E. Ambrose, author of Undaunted Courage

"Speeches are a vital instrument of presidential leadership. Speeches are also important within the executive branch as a means of forcing decisions, crystallizing policies, and imposing discipline. Carol Gelderman is absolutely right in arguing the necessity of 'uniting important policymaking and speechwriting functions in one trusted adviser' - a Rosenman, a Clifford, a Sorensen, a McPherson."
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 1995

"This well-researched book deserves a broad readership. Because of Ms. Gelderman's innovative focus...and notably clear discussions...that successful speeches require genuine collaboration between Presidents, policy makers and writers, she is able to show persuasively just how often writers have shaped the substance of speeches - sometimes because presidents were indecisive and sometimes because they failed to recognize that nuanced content had slipped into the text simply because the writers had not received clear signals from the Oval Office about what the Chief Executive really wanted. All the Presidents'Words is a much-needed narrative that deserves serious attention."
Michael Kammen, New York Times Book Review, May 4, 1997

Mary McCarthy: A Life (St. Martin's Press, 1988):

"A carefully researched, nicely paced, and always readable work....A well-balanced and enjoyable account of a remarkable American life."
Robert Towers, front page, New York Times Book Review

"Gelderman has a superb biographer's style....Her book abounds with fresh and persuasive insights."
Smithsonian

"A riveting combination of titillating gossip and brilliant literary criticism overflowing with so many pithy quotations and illuminating analyses that it left me with a case of underliner's cramp."
Florence King, Newsday

"An intelligent, sympathetic, and generously detailed biography of one of America's most strikingly talented writers."
Joyce Carol Oates

Henry Ford: The Wayward Capitalist (Dial Press, 1981 - hardcover; St. Martin's Press, 1990 - paperback):

"A balanced and highly readable account of the complex automotive genius....An engrossing life of an American original."
Publishers Weekly

"Gelderman's Ford is a solid, briskly written biography, which reintroduces one of the great figures of twentieth-century America to a new generation."
Los Angeles Herald-Examiner

"Thoroughly researched...psychologically convincing."
The New Yorker

"To listen to Carol Gelderman telling of Ford's adventures and battles is to hear a master storyteller. The Ford story has not been properly told before, and Gelderman gives us a surprising, fascinating book. To write this book Gelderman had to combine the skills of a biographer, economist, historian, and automotive expert. She succeeded on every count."
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Louis Auchincloss, A Writer's Life (Crown Publishers, 1993):

"Well written and well organized, this excellent biography details Auchincloss's ... success in a dual career. Gelderman does an outstanding job of portraying the inner tension and outside pressures on a man torn between his writing and law practice."
Library Journal

"Gelderman demonstrates sound judgment and provides intriguing examples of ways in which Auchincloss's legal experience influenced his literary work and his literary talent helped him in his law career. The narrative moves swiftly, it's full of fascinating people and illuminating anecdotes, and the biographer maintains a fine balance between portraying her subject's social background as a member of the WASP elite and delineating the specific traits of his personality."
Christian Science Monitor

"Gelderman's book is insightful without being intrusive, perfect for someone as obviously private as her subject, whose reserve and good manners can make him seem more British than the British."
The Financial Post

"Mr. Auchincloss seems to have been exceptionally lucky in his first biographer, Carol Gelderman, a professor of English at the University of New Orleans who does not shrink from the horrific possibility that a well-to-do white man might be able to write good novels about other well-to-do white men. Left-wing critics whose reverse snobbery has led them to dismiss Louis Auchincloss as a well- healed lightweight would do well to note Carol Gelderman's last word on his oeuvre: 'As a writer he offers his readers unimpeachable observations of the rich and powerful in 20th century Manhattan. The Versailles people know today is Saint-Simon's creation, not Louis XIV's. The writer who acutely observes and cogently and elegantly relates what he has seen is more enduring than any critic or king.'"
Terry Teachout, Washington Times

Phone Number:
(504) 280-7157

Email Dr. Gelderman@
cgelderman@uno.edu

Address: Liberal Arts Building 261

Office Hours:

T 4:00-6:00pm and by
appointment

Courses for Fall 2009:

Engl 6154-602:
Nonfiction Writing Workshop
T 6:00-8:45pm