“Is there desperation on this page?” @NYHistory’s exhibition of the Robert Caro archives is a study in the mechanics of virtuosity and the counsel of an early editor: “Turn every page…turn every goddamn page.” A few of the hand-written admonishments he posted in book drafts: 
“BE VERY CAREFUL.” Check this all-caps warning Caro writes to himself about how to portray a source. (Can’t conclude from this page alone, but there is a Texas Sen. Ralph Yarborough who appears in the Passage of Power, Caro’s fourth volume in the LBJ biography.)
Absent a real deadline, Caro built a tool for himself to encourage productivity. Here’s his planning calendar from 1971 while writing The Power Broker. His goal was 1000 words each day.
Caro will convincingly write in The Power Broker that Robert Moses used bridge construction to keep people of color out of Jones Beach State Park. One day’s reporting: he and his wife Ina stand at the parking lot entrance and hand-tally visitors by race—white, Black and Latinx.
“Caro outlines his entire book before writing a single word. He then pins these pages to a cork bulletin board mounted above the desk in the office where he writes. As he finishes with each point in the outline, Caro draws a bold vertical line with a 314 Berol Draughting pencil.”
A man and his bulletin board. From “Turn Every Page: Inside the Robert A. Caro Archive”
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