About Elizabeth Smith Brownstein

Elizabeth Smith Brownstei

...in her own words

Born, raised, and educated in the public schools of Taunton, Massachusetts, a love of history was nurtured in me

very

early. I grew up, we learned in elementary school, in the only town in the United States founded by a

woman! A statue

of Robert Treat Paine, signer of the Declaration of Independence, stood in a prominent place

downtown, and a

monument on the Common to the local men who served in the Civil War was regarded very

personally, as my great

grandfather was killed in the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864. (No one talked very much

about the fact that Taunton

was the birthplace of William Z. Foster, a founder of the American Communist

Party!)

I furthered my intense interest in American history and its role in the world with studies at Wellesley College

and

The

London School of Economics and Political Science.

My career, spent largely in the production of public affairs programs and cultural documentaries for both public

and

commercial television, began with a huge stroke of luck at CBS headquarters in New York City, where for

four years I

served as chief television researcher, providing materials for the staff of Edward R. Murrow’s

ground

breaking programs “See It Now” and “Person to Person”, for CBS News, and others. (If you have

seen

the

Katherine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy film “Desk Set”, you will see a pretty accurate rendition of the CBS

Reference

Department, where I worked, and on which the film was based. Katherine Hepburn came in one day

to absorb local

color, and thanked us the following day with a huge white box containing hundreds of tiny pink

roses, so that each of us

could have our own bouquet.)

Over the course of my career, I have been privileged to work as writer, researcher, and producer for some of

the

distinguished, intellectually demanding figures in the medium: Lawrence Spivak , founder and producer of

“Meet the

Press”, Eric Sevareid, Martin Agronsky, Adrian Malone (previously Cosmos, The Ascent of Man)

and Martin Carr,

executive producer of the Smithsonian Institution’s first prime time television presence (on

PBS): SMITHSONIAN

WORLD, on which I served as Director of Research. They all believed, as I do, in the

positive role television can and

should play if i

used with integrity.

I have been fortunate to be able to indulge my passion for travel, both professionally and personally. Since the

age of

18, I’ve traveled widely by foot, bicycle, bus and train, in the United States, Europe, and Africa.

Research

for my first

book, If This House Could Talk…Historic Homes, Extraordinary Americans, took me

across

America for several

years, visiting over 125 potential sites in twenty states for the book, which explored

major

themes in American History

using as metaphors the 28 houses I ultimately selected. This was published in

1999

by Simon & Schuster, and was

warmly praised.

Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield, Illinois house, the only home he ever owned, was included in the book. Intensive

research on that site, together with the grounding I received as a child intrigued by my father’s small Lincolniana

collection, furnished the base from which I began working on Lincoln’s Other White House.