Caro’s principle on research is to “Turn every page.” That is advice an editor gave the young reporter six decades ago and he has used it ever since. Caro admits that one cannot turn every page in a collection as enormous as the Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) Presidential Library where the amount of material numbers over thirty million pages. In that case, he adds a corollary that it is critical to turn the most important pages; that is to say, find the people most valuable to the event, issue, or question that you are currently working on.
Here’s one example from Workingthat relates to The Path to Power, the first volume of the LBJ biography that was published in 1982. As Caro was turning every page in the House Files of the LBJ archives on the Texan’s congressional career, he noted a dramatic shift in the tone of the correspondence. Only weeks before he was practically begging his fellow congressmen for some attention. Then, suddenly, the very same congressmen were pleading to him in the same desperate tone. Moreover, this transformation happened precisely in October 1940.
At this early stage, Caro was interviewing everyone still alive who had known LBJ, so he asked veteran Washington, DC Democrat Party fixer Tommy “the Cork” Corcoran. The Cork’s response to Caro’s inquiry, “Money, kid, money.” “But you’re never going to be able to write about that. Because you’re never going to find anything in writing.” (p.89)
When Caro returned to the archives he began to widen his search in the LBJ archives beyond the House Files series. Who were LBJ’s trusted relationships? Whom did LBJ have financial connections to in 1940? Where else in the archives might confidential material be squirreled away? LBJ was very closely connected to a construction company named Brown & Root. He got them federal contracts and they kicked money back to him. Pulling files related to Brown & Root, he found a telegram date October 19, 1940 referencing checks from subcontractors and which congressmen should receive what amounts. What’s more, Caro found LBJ’s response, which included a reference to how “the boss” was paying attention to LBJ. The boss was President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Caro started turning more pages and more pages, uncovering more evidence in the story of how LBJ became the central figure in Washington, DC funneling fat campaign contributions from Texas to congressman throughout the nation desperate for funding. I am not doing justice to the story and the way that Caro tells it. It is worthy of inclusion as a chapter in the classic Historian as Detective(1969), edited by Robin Winks.
Caro gets to the heart of the historian’s role as researcher. Sometimes what you need is obvious, but for many biographers and historians it takes years of combing through the archives. It is fun, exciting, and, admittedly, sometimes tedious and dull. One has to learn not only about their subject, but all of their correspondents. If you cannot turn every single page, how do you limit that?
My own example involves over a decade of researching The Most Defiant Devil: William T. Hornaday and his Controversial Crusade to Save American Wildlife(2013). Hornaday left behind two huge collections of papers. While not as vast as LBJ’s millions, Hornaday’s numbered in the tens of thousands. He intentionally left behind such voluminous collection because he thought that wildlife would be extinct by the end of the twentieth century and he wanted to show posterity that he and others tried to prevent the cataclysm. The papers at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in the Bronx Zoo are mostly related to conservation and professional, while the Library of Congress (LOC) collection consisted largely of personal letters and documents. The overwhelming effort was spent was on the WCS papers. Honestly, I decided not to turn many of the LOC pages. While it might have been fun, I could still be there reading through such ephemera as the plays that Hornaday wrote that were never published. When it came to letters, I realized that each one of his corresponds played a different role to Hornaday. This is where critical reading of the source material comes in. There were those whom Hornaday considered proteges and dispensed advice to, but did not share full confidence with. Other correspondents were people he needed to keep as happy as possible and therefore tried to restrain his vitriol. This could also include financial backers who did not want to hear how terrible some of their friends might be in Hornaday’s estimation. There were numerous correspondents that he had only a minimal relationship. But there were a few people that he did share his inner most thoughts and plans. One such person was Edmund Seymour, an investor who later became president of the American Bison Society. I am not even sure when or how exactly they met, but Seymour was Hornaday’s alter ego. Those letters were hot stuff! I made sure I turned everyone of those pages.
