October 16, 2024–July 25, 2025
Briscoe Center for American History, Austin, Texas
Main Exhibition Gallery, Sid Richardson Hall Unit 2
In its new exhibition, History and Fate: The Goodwins and the 1960s, the Briscoe Center presents the events and pivotal figures of the decade through the papers of Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard N. Goodwin.
Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband, Richard N. Goodwin, helped define the American presidency through their writing. Dick Goodwin shaped the language of presidential messages as a speech writer for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin served as one of President Johnson’s White House fellows and went on to write the presidential biography Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.
History and Fate, the new exhibition at the Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin, traces the entwining stories of the Goodwins’ relationship, their proximity to power, and reflections on a tumultuous era seen in its most intimate moments. In the final years of Dick Goodwin’s life, he and Doris combed through boxes of his papers together. Their project unearthed letters, photos, diaries, and drafts of speeches Dick wrote that helped shape national and international policy. The Goodwins’ quoted conversations and perspectives act as guides through this exhibit, narrating firsthand insights into the formative decade of the 1960s.
The exhibit will open on October 16 and close on July 25, 2025. Visit briscoecenter.org for more information.
