Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in the context of "Jon Meacham"

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president at 43 years. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A member of the Democratic Party, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress before his presidency.

Born into the prominent Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1940, joining the U.S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, he commanded PT boats in the Pacific theater. Kennedy's survival following the sinking of PT-109 and his rescue of his fellow sailors made him a war hero and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, but left him with serious injuries. After a brief stint in journalism, Kennedy represented a working-class Boston district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate, serving as the junior senator from Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960. While in the Senate, Kennedy published his book Profiles in Courage, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Kennedy ran in the 1960 presidential election. His campaign gained momentum after the first televised presidential debates in American history, and he was elected president, narrowly defeating Republican opponent Richard Nixon, the incumbent vice president.

Profiles in Courage is a 1956 volume of short biographies describing acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States senators. The book, authored by John F. Kennedy with Ted Sorensen as a ghostwriter, profiles senators who defied the opinions of their party and constituents to do what they felt was right and suffered severe criticism and losses in popularity as a result. It begins with a quotation from Edmund Burke on the courage of the English statesman Charles James Fox, in his 1783 "attack upon the tyranny of the East India Company" in the House of Commons, and focuses on mid-19th-century antebellum America and the efforts of senators to delay the American Civil War. Profiles in Courage was widely celebrated and became a bestseller. It includes a foreword by Allan Nevins.

John F. Kennedy, then a U.S. senator, won the Pulitzer Prize for the work. However, in his 2008 autobiography, Kennedy's speechwriter Ted Sorensen, who was presumed as early as 1957 to be the book's ghostwriter, acknowledged that he "did a first draft of most chapters" and "helped choose the words of many of its sentences". Jules Davids, who was a history professor for Kennedy's wife Jacqueline when she was a student at George Washington University, is also acknowledged to have made key contributions to the historical research and organizational planning for the book.

Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (/ˈʃlɛsɪndʒər/ SHLESS-in-jər; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a specialist in American history, much of Schlesinger's work explored the history of 20th-century American liberalism. In particular, his work focused on leaders such as Harry S. Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. In the 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns, he was a primary speechwriter and adviser to the Democratic presidential nominee, Adlai Stevenson II. Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian" to President Kennedy from 1961 to 1963. He wrote a detailed account of the Kennedy administration, from the 1960 presidential campaign to the president's state funeral, titled A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, which won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

In 1968, Schlesinger actively supported the presidential campaign of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, which ended with Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles. Schlesinger wrote a popular biography, Robert Kennedy and His Times, several years later. He later popularized the term "imperial presidency" during the Nixon administration in his 1973 book, The Imperial Presidency.

Theodore Chaikin Sorensen (May 8, 1928 – October 31, 2010) was an American lawyer, writer, and presidential adviser. Many have attempted to credit Sorensen as the writer behind John F. Kennedy's speeches, but in the introduction to "Let the Word Go Forth", a book of Kennedy's speeches, statements, and writings from 1947 to 1963, Sorensen states: "John Kennedy was the true author of all his speeches and writings. They set forth his (italic emphasis by Sorensen) ideas and ideals, his decisions and policies, his knowledge of history and politics...More importantly, he alone was responsible for the decision that lay at the heart of every major speech." Kennedy would later pen Profiles in Courage, for which he won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Biography; Sorensen provided assistance in assembling the work. He also assisted in Kennedy's inaugural address and drafted Lyndon Johnson's Let Us Continue speech following Kennedy's assassination.

Jules Davids (December 10, 1920 – December 6, 1996) was a professor of diplomatic history at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University until his retirement in 1986. A prolific author, his most famous work was undoubtedly his editorial assistance on Profiles in Courage, a surprise bestseller that won the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for biography for its author, Senator John F Kennedy. He graduated from Brooklyn College. Davids received $700 for his labors and acknowledgement in the foreword that he "materially assisted in the preparation of several chapters," but extensive revelations from many sources, including a detailed account by Jules Davids himself, establish that Davids prepared initial drafts of five of the chapters on the book.

He joined the faculty at Georgetown University in 1947. His students included future United States president Bill Clinton when Clinton was a Georgetown undergraduate in 1968, future first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and historian Douglas Brinkley, with whom he discussed his involvement in the Kennedy book.