Walter Lord

Walter Lord
Walter Lord, 1958 Walter Lord, 1958
Born	(1917-10-08)October 8, 1917 Baltimore, Maryland
Died	Manhattan, New York
Resting place	Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore
Occupation	Historian
Nationality	USA
Alma mater	Princeton University; Yale Law School
Period	1952–1986
Genre	Narrative history
Notable awards	Francis Parkman Prize for Special Achievement (1994)

John Walter Lord, Jr. (October 8, 1917 – May 19, 2002), was an American author, best known for his documentary-style non-fiction account A Night to Remember (1955), about the sinking of the RMS Titanic.

Early life

Lord was born in Baltimore, Maryland to John Walterhouse Lord and Henrietta neé Hoffman on October 8, 1917. His father was a lawyer, who died when Walter was just three years old. His grandfather, Richard Curzon Hoffman, was president of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company ("Old Bay Line") steamship firm in the 1890s.

In July 1926, at the age of 9, he traveled across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to Cherbourg and Southampton, on the RMS Olympic, the Titanic's sister ship. Following high school at Baltimore's Gilman School, he studied history at Princeton University, graduating in 1939. Lord then enrolled at Yale Law School, interrupting his studies to join the Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor. During World War II, he was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services as a code clerk in London, in 1942. He was the agency's secretariat when the war ended in 1945. Afterwards, Lord returned to Yale where he earned a degree in law.

Career

Lord wrote or edited and annotated eleven bestselling books on such diverse subjects as Pearl Harbor (Day of Infamy, 1957), the Battle of Midway (Incredible Victory, 1967), the Battle of the Alamo (A Time to Stand, 1961), the Battle of Baltimore (The Dawn's Early Light, 1972), Arctic exploration (Peary to the Pole, 1963), pre-World War I America (The Good Years: From 1900 to the First World War, 1960), Coastwatchers (Lonely Vigil, 1977) and the civil rights struggle (The Past That Would Not Die, 1965).

Memorial bench engraved with Lord's book titles

Shortly after going to work as a copywriter for the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York City, Lord published The Fremantle Diary, edited and annotated from the journals of the British officer and Confederate sympathizer, Arthur Fremantle, who toured the South for three months in 1863. It became a mild, but surprising, success in 1954, as Lord was well into completing A Night to Remember, which would win him much popular acclaim.

A Night to Remember, about the sinking of the RMS Titanic, became a bestseller in 1955 and was made into a popular 1958 British movie of the same name. The historian tracked down 63 Titanic survivors and wrote a dramatic, minute-by-minute account of the ocean liner's sinking during her maiden voyage. Lord's knowledge of the Titanic catastrophe achieved considerable renown, and he frequently lectured at meetings of the Titanic Historical Society. In his final years, Lord wrote another book about the Titanic titled The Night Lives On, published in 1986. In the next decade, Lord served as a consultant to director James Cameron during the filming of the movie Titanic (1997). The sequel to Cameron's film Titanic, Ghosts of the Abyss (2003), was dedicated to Lord's memory.

Death

Lord's grave in the family plot at Green Mount Cemetery

Lord, a lifelong bachelor, died at age 84 on May 19, 2002 after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease, at his Manhattan home. Noted historian David McCullough said of Lord at his death, "He was one of the most generous and kind-hearted men I've ever known, and when I had stars in my eyes and wanted to become a writer, he was a great help. I'll always be indebted to him."

Walter Lord is buried in his maternal family's plot at historic Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, marked by a marble bench listing the books he authored.

In 2009, Jenny Lawrence edited and published The Way It Was: Walter Lord on His Life and Books. In the late 1980s, Lawrence had recorded hours of interviews she had with Lord, in which he discussed his writing and life. After chapters on his early life in Baltimore and up to his time with the OSS in London and Paris, chapters are devoted to the research and writing of each of his books.

Publications

Lord published twelve historical works:

• The Fremantle Diary (1954) (ed.)
• A Night to Remember (1955)
• Day of Infamy (1957)
• The Good Years (1960)
• A Time to Stand (1961)
• Peary and the Pole (1963)
• The Past That Would Not Die (1965)
• Incredible Victory (1967)
• The Dawn's Early Light (1972)
• Lonely Vigil (1977)
• The Miracle of Dunkirk (1982)
• The Night Lives On (1986)

See also

• Gilman School
• RMS Titanic

External links

• Walter Lord at Find a Grave
• Tribute by the Titanic Historical Society