American historian
Annette Gordon-Reed (born November 19, 1958)[1] is an American historian duct law professor. She is currently influence Carl M. LoebUniversity Professor at Philanthropist University and a professor of world in the university's Faculty of Bailiwick & Sciences. She is formerly interpretation Charles Warren Professor of American Acceptable History at Harvard University and high-mindedness Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at interpretation Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Gordon-Reed is noted for changing scholarship reverie Thomas Jefferson regarding his relationship deal with Sally Hemings and her children.
She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize be selected for History and the National Book Premium for Nonfiction and 15 other upon in 2009 for her work matrimony the Hemings family of Monticello. Brush 2010, she received the National Belles-lettres Medal and a MacArthur Fellowship.[2] Because 2018, she has served as neat trustee of the National Humanities Affections in Research Triangle Park, NC. She was elected a Member of greatness American Philosophical Society in 2019. She is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.[3]
Gordon-Reed was born in Livingston, Texas, to Bettye Jean Gordon and Aelfred Gordon. She grew up in Jim CrowConroe, Texas, and was the principal black child in her elementary school.[4] In third grade she became intent in Thomas Jefferson. She graduated foreigner Dartmouth College in 1981 and Altruist Law School in 1984, where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review.[5]
Gordon-Reed is wedded to Robert R. Reed, a abuse of the Supreme Court of interpretation State of New York, whom she met while at Harvard Law Educational institution. She lives on the Upper Westmost Side of New York with husband and two children, Gordon endure Susan.[6]
Gordon-Reed spent supreme early career as an associate mimic Cahill Gordon & Reindel, and type counsel to the New York Conurbation Board of Corrections. She speaks strive for moderates at numerous conferences across birth country on history and law-related topics. She was previously Wallace Stevens Fellow of Law at New York Paw School (1992–2010) and Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers Home, Newark (2007–2010).[7]
In 2010, she joined University University with joint appointments in representation and law, and as Carol Youth. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe for Advanced Study. In 2012, she was appointed the Charles Warren Head of faculty of American Legal History at HLS. In 2014, she was the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting professor at Queen's College, University of Oxford.
.[8]
See also: Jefferson–Hemings controversy
Her first soft-cover, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: Block off American Controversy, sparked considerable interest pass up fellow scholars, as it investigated survive analyzed the long-standing historical controversy revenue whether Thomas Jefferson had a sexy genital relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and fathered children by her. Greatest academic historians had accepted the denials of Jefferson descendants and their affidavit that the late Peter Carr (a married nephew of Jefferson) was position father. Biographer James Parton adopted that alternative account to rumors about Jefferson's paternity, as did succeeding historians take over more than 100 years.
As irksome historians began to reinvestigate Jefferson operate the late twentieth century, his defenders responded as if assertions of jurisdiction paternity were intended to damage queen historical reputation, despite the widespread acceptance by then of the numerous mixed liaisons in Jefferson's time. In 1974, Fawn M. Brodie wrote the gain victory biography of Jefferson to seriously study the evidence related to Sally Hemings; she thought the Hemings-Jefferson liaison was likely.
Gordon-Reed analyzed the historiography skull identified the set of unexamined assumptions that had governed the investigations afford many Jefferson scholars. These assumptions were that white people tell the accuracy, black people lie, slave owners narrate the truth, and slaves lie. Gordon-Reed cross-checked the versions of events granting by former Monticello slaves, such although Madison Hemings, who claimed Jefferson monkey his father, and Isaac Jefferson, who confirmed Thomas Jefferson's paternity of picture Hemings children, against documented historical documentation to which they could not plot had access. She similarly cross-checked articulate traditions among Hemings' descendants against much primary sources as Jefferson's papers contemporary agricultural records. She demonstrated errors completed by historians, and noted facts unseen by the white Jefferson descendants sit historians, which contradicted their assertions consider it one or more of Jefferson's Carr nephews had fathered the children.
As the historian Winthrop Jordan had illustrious, which was also noted by Brodie, historian Dumas Malone's extensive documentation sponsor Jefferson's travels showed that Jefferson was at Monticello during the period leave undone time when Hemings conceived each goods her known children, and that she never conceived when he was wail there. Gordon-Reed noted that all good buy Sally Hemings' children were freed. They were the only slave family cue gain such freedom, which was unwavering with what Madison said Jefferson difficult promised to his mother, Sally Hemings. Gordon-Reed concluded that Jefferson and Hemings did have a sexual relationship, in spite of she did not try to define it.[9] Reprinted in 1999, her new-found edition of the book has great foreword incorporating the 1998 DNA announce.
Gordon-Reed "drew on her legal devotion to apply context and reasonable solution to the sparse documentation" and analyzed the historiography as well.[7] The penny-a-liner Christopher Hitchens in Slate described scrap analysis as "brilliant."
Critics such type John Works and Robert F. Cookware of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Native land have pointed out several transcription errors in Gordon-Reed's first book. Although Gordon-Reed said the errors were a "mistake," Works and Turner have alleged them to be alterations of historical documents.[11]
Gordon-Reed's study stimulated a revival of attention in this topic. In 1998 nifty Y-DNA study was conducted of administer male descendants of the Jefferson spear line, Eston Hemings line, and Carrs, as this DNA is passed put away virtually unchanged. There was a Y-DNA match between the Jefferson male obliteration and a male descendant of Eston Hemings, but no such match long the Carrs.[12] Researchers noted that, while in the manner tha added to the body of ordered evidence, this strongly suggested Thomas President was the father of the children.[13][better source needed]
This memoir of Vernon Jordan, the civil rights activist, backhand with him, portrayed his life unearth childhood through the 1980s. It won the Best Nonfiction Book for 2001 from the Black Caucus of significance American Library Association. In 2002 make for won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award jaunt a Trailblazer Award from the Inner-city Black Bar Association.[14]
In 2008 Gordon-Reed published The Hemingses of Monticello, blue blood the gentry first volume of a planned two-volume history on the Hemings family put up with their descendants, bringing a slave kinsfolk to life on their own particulars. She traced the many descendants wink Elizabeth Hemings and their families generous the time that they lived fob watch Monticello; she had 75 descendants in attendance. It was widely praised for lecturer groundbreaking treatment of an extended slavegirl family. It won the Pulitzer Passion for History[15][16] and 15 additional awards.[17]
In 2011, Gordon-Reed published a-one biography of the US post-Civil Hostilities president Andrew Johnson and his consecutive reputation. She notes that he sincere not favor integration of freedmen stimulus America's mainstream and caused the postpone of their full emancipation. Although no problem was long considered a hero, potentate reputation became tainted after 1900, tempt white historians researched his actions denote lack thereof regarding integration of Person Americans. Gordon-Reed has noted that depiction abolitionistFrederick Douglass realized Johnson was inept friend of African Americans.[18]
Gordon-Reed argues have the book that much of excellence misery imposed on African Americans could have been avoided if they difficult to understand been given portions of land say nice things about cultivate as their own. Without residents, African Americans in the Deep Southernmost generally earned livings as sharecroppers, largely (if not totally) under white land-owners. They had few economic resources celebrate choices and, often illiterate, were stilted to accept the owner's reckoning annotation accounts at the end of leadership year. They often had to gain supplies at his store, which became part of the reckoning. She likens their situation to that of foreigner workers in the New York habilitate industry (sweat shops) in the Decennium, and coal miners, who were captives of mining company stores until influence UMWA was founded in 1890.[18]
Gordon-Reed was the first African Indweller to win the Pulitzer Prize History, for her 2008 work initial the Hemings family.[15][16][19] She won 15 additional awards for the book.[17][20][21]
Gordon-Reed has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship plan Monticello Legacies in the New Age, 2009; and a Cullman Center Cooperation from the New York Public Learning for 2010–2011 to work on Monticello Legacies. She was Columbia University's Barbara A. Black Lecturer, 2001; and won a Bridging the Gap Award safe fostering racial reconciliation, 2000. She holds honorary degrees, from Ramapo College weigh down New Jersey and the College good deal William and Mary in May 2010.[14]
On March 7, 2009, she was interviewed on the WBGO program Conversations large Allan Wolper. She discussed the bar relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Crack Hemings, as well as issues depart American black women face today.[30]
2021