Professor donates $1 million in documents, photos to Pitt

Professor Donald Goldstein was not always passionate about history.

A little surprising,… Professor Donald Goldstein was not always passionate about history.

A little surprising, considering his donation of historical documents to Pitt, as well as the 25 books on historical events he either wrote or co-wrote.

His donation, deemed the “Goldstein Collection,” consists of 4,400 books, 13,000 photographs, 300 tapes and approximately 200 interviews. He is adding $110,000 to make the donation an even $1 million.

Goldstein, a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs for 32 years, felt it was time to give back to students.

He attributes it to luck that his $1 million donation allowed Pitt’s Discover a World of Possibilities campaign to reach the $1 billion mark.

“I hit the lottery, because I’m the guy who put them over,” he said.

It was a particular professor at the University of Maryland who transformed Goldstein’s non-existent interest in history into his life’s work.

Gordon Prange, who was working on a book about Pearl Harbor, taught the “dumb cross-country runner among football players” and kept in touch with him after Goldstein earned his master’s degree in history and throughout his years in the Air Force.

When he got a call from Prange, dying and unable to finish his book, Goldstein knew what he had to do. In 1980, he went to New York to push the book along.

Goldstein and Katherine Dillon, Prange’s research assistant, finished the book, which they re-titled “At Dawn We Slept.”

It stayed on the bestseller list for 47 weeks, and received a raving three-page review from the New York Times.

This is a big enough accomplishment, yet to top it off, “Goldy,” as his students affectionately call him, he has his own bobblehead doll. This, too, adds to Goldstein’s contribution, as the money made from bobblehead dolls goes to scholarship funds.

“This guy actually looks like me,” he said, quite pleased.

Perhaps Goldy is so well loved because he stays invested in the future of his students by teaching them about the past. He makes it known that his donation is for the current generation and for future generations.

“Vets are dying at a rate of 1,600 a day,” he said. “So the documents are left to tell the story.”

The story, in fact, is nothing that could be found in a textbook. In the Goldstein Collection, there are love letters from soldiers to people back home, diaries and still photographs. This personal side is what Goldstein finds most valuable.

“This stuff’s not edited,” he declared proudly.

He notes that he made sure to interview people as early as he could, so they would be truthful and would not adjust to what the public wants to hear.

However, as a vehement history buff, Goldstein gets irritated when people judge what happened years ago by contemporary ideals.

“It was a different time,” he stated. “I get tired of people interpreting history by today’s standards.”

With the donation of his collection, Goldstein can rest assured that students are learning history the way it should be learned. Despite the challenge of teaching, and the sometimes-frustrating system of education, he remains positive.

Smiling at his bobblehead doll, which continuously nods “yes,” Goldstein said, “This guy always agrees with me.”