James A. Michener - Biography

Biography

Michener wrote that he did not know who his biological parents were or exactly when or where he was born. He claimed he was raised a Quaker by an adoptive mother, Mabel Michener, in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

After graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude in 1929 from Swarthmore College in English and psychology, he traveled and studied in Europe for two years. Michener then took a job as a high school English teacher at The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. From 1933 to 1936 he taught English at George School, in Newtown, Pennsylvania, then attended Colorado State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado), earned his master's degree, and taught there for several years. The library at the University of Northern Colorado is named for him. In 1935 Michener married Patti Koon. He went to Harvard for a one-year teaching stint from 1939 to 1940 and left teaching to join Macmillan Publishers as their social studies education editor.

Michener was called to active duty during World War II in the United States Navy. He traveled throughout the South Pacific on various missions that were assigned to him because his base commanders thought he was the son of Admiral Marc Mitscher. His travels became the setting for his breakout work Tales of the South Pacific.

In 1960, Michener was chairman of the Bucks County committee to elect John F. Kennedy. In 1962, he unsuccessfully ran as a Democratic candidate for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, a decision he later considered a misstep. "My mistake was to run in 1962 as a Democratic candidate for Congress. kept saying, 'Don't do it, don't do it.' I lost and went back to writing books." In 1968, Michener served as the campaign manager for twice-elected US senator Joseph S. Clark's third term run. Michener was later Secretary for the 1967–68 Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention.