Annette Gordon-Reed
Encyclopedia
Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and law professor noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson
. Gordon-Reed was educated at Dartmouth College
and Harvard Law School
. She is Professor of Law and History at Harvard, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History
and 15 other prizes in 2009 for her work on the Hemings
family of Monticello, and in 2010 she received the National Humanities Medal
and was named a MacArthur Fellow.
to Bettye Jean Gordon and Alfred Gordon. She became interested in Thomas Jefferson as a student in elementary school. She graduated from Dartmouth College
in 1981 and from Harvard Law School
in 1984, where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review
.
of New York with her husband and two children, Gordon and Susan.
, and as Counsel to the New York City Board of Corrections. She speaks or moderates at numerous conferences across the country on history and law-related topics. She was a professor at New York Law School from 1992 until June 2010. She taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses in American History and American Studies at Rutgers-Newark in the spring from 2007 until June 2010. In 2010 she joined Harvard University with a joint appointment in history and law.
Her first book, published in 1997, was Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. The book sparked great interest from fellow scholars, as it investigated the long-standing historical controversy of whether Thomas Jefferson
had a sexual relationship with his slave Sally Hemings
and fathered children by her. Most academic historians had accepted Jefferson descendants' denials and regarded the assertion as a false charge intended by Jefferson's critics to damage his historical reputation. Jefferson's status as an icon also contributed to historians' reluctance to add the president to those planters and other white men who had relationships with their slaves, producing the many mixed-race children born into slavery. By the mid-1970s, some historians had begun to look more closely at the facts and thought the Hemings-Jefferson liaison was likely. Gordon-Reed "drew on her legal training to apply context and reasonable interpretation to the sparse documentation".
She identified a set of unexamined assumptions that had governed many Jefferson scholars' investigations. These assumptions were that white people tell the truth, black people lie, slave owners tell the truth, and slaves lie. Gordon-Reed cross-checked the versions of events provided by former Monticello slaves, such as Madison Hemings
, who claimed Jefferson as his father, and Isaac Jefferson
, who confirmed Jefferson's paternity of the Hemings children, against documented historical evidence to which they could not have had access. She similarly cross-checked oral traditions among Hemings descendants with primary sources such as Jefferson's papers and agricultural records. She noted facts which the white Jefferson descendants and historians had overlooked, which contradicted their assertion that Jefferson's Carr nephew had fathered the children. As the historian Winthrop Jordan had noted, Dumas Malone's timeline showed that Jefferson was at Monticello each time Hemings conceived. Gordon-Reed noted those were the only times she conceived. Her analysis led her to conclude that Jefferson and Hemings did have an intimate sexual relationship, though she did not try to characterize it. Reprinted in 1999, the new edition of the book has a foreword incorporating the 1998 DNA study.
Reports of a DNA study in 1998 showed there was a match between the Jefferson male line and an Eston Hemings descendants, with researchers' noting that, added to the body of historical evidence, this strongly suggested Thomas Jefferson was the father of the children. In addition, it conclusively showed there was no match between descendants of the Carr line, put forward by Wayles-Jefferson descendants as paternity candidates. In 2001 the National Genealogical Society
published a special issue on the topic and concluded the that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Heming's children.
On February 28, 2011, Gordon-Reed was interviewed by Tavis Smiley
about her latest historical work, a study of Andrew Johnson
, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln as president after his assassination. She believes that Johnson, although loyal to the Union, did not favor integration of the freedmen into America's mainstream and caused the delay of full emancipation. Although he was long considered a hero, his reputation became tainted after 1900, as white historians researched his actions or lack thereof regarding integration of African Americans. Gordon-Reed has noted that the abolitionist Frederick Douglass
realized Johnson was no friend of African Americans. Gordon-Reed argues in the book that much of the misery imposed on African Americans could have been avoided if they had been given portions of land to cultivate as their own. Without land, African Americans in the Deep South
generally earned livings as sharecroppers, primarily (if not totally) under white land owners. They had few economic resources or choices and, often illiterate, were forced to accept the owner's reckoning of accounts at the end of the year. They often had to buy supplies at his store, which became part of the reckoning. She likens their situation to that of immigrant workers in the New York garment industry (sweat shops) in the 1890s, and coal miners, who were captives of mining company stores until the UMWA was founded in 1890.
. The book has won the Pulitzer Prize
for history and 15 additional awards; it was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award
in Biography and the 2009 Mark Lynton History Prize
.:
In 2008:
In 2009:
On February 25, 2010, President Barack Obama
honored Annette Gordon-Reed with the National Humanities Medal
in a ceremony at the White House
; Gordon-Reed was one of 20 recipients of the nation's highest honors in the arts and the humanities.
On September 28, 2010, Gordon-Reed was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the "genius grants". The Foundation noted that her "persistent investigation into the life of an iconic American president has dramatically changed the course of Jeffersonian scholarship." In 2010 she joined the faculty of Harvard University, with a joint appointment in history and law.
Gordon-Reed has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship
for Monticello Legacies in the New Age, 2009; and a Cullman Center Fellowship from the New York Public Library for 2010-2011 to work on Monticello Legacies, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Vernon Can Read!, 2002; a Trailblazer Award, Metropolitan Black Bar Association, 2002; Best Nonfiction Book for 2001, Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She was Columbia University’s Barbara A. Black Lecturer, 2001; and won a Bridging the Gap Award for fostering racial reconciliation, 2000. She holds honorary degrees, from Ramapo College
in New Jersey and the College of William and Mary
in May 2010.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
. Gordon-Reed was educated at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
and Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
. She is Professor of Law and History at Harvard, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard is an educational institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one of the semiautonomous components of Harvard University. It is heir to the name and buildings of Radcliffe College, but unlike that historical institution, its focus is directed...
. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History
Pulitzer Prize for History
The Pulitzer Prize for History has been awarded since 1917 for a distinguished book upon the history of the United States. Many history books have also been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography...
and 15 other prizes in 2009 for her work on the Hemings
Sally Hemings
Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a mixed-race slave owned by President Thomas Jefferson through inheritance from his wife. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson by their father John Wayles...
family of Monticello, and in 2010 she received the National Humanities Medal
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.The award, given by the...
and was named a MacArthur Fellow.
Background and education
Gordon-Reed was born November 19, 1958 in Livingston, TexasLivingston, Texas
Livingston is a town in Polk County, Texas, United States. The population was 5,433 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Polk County. Livingston was settled in 1835 as Springfield. Its name was changed to Livingston and became the county seat of Polk County in 1846.The Alabama-Coushatta...
to Bettye Jean Gordon and Alfred Gordon. She became interested in Thomas Jefferson as a student in elementary school. She graduated from Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
in 1981 and from Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
in 1984, where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review
Harvard Law Review
The Harvard Law Review is a journal of legal scholarship published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School.-Overview:According to the 2008 Journal Citation Reports, the Review is the most cited law review and has the second-highest impact factor in the category "law" after the...
.
Marriage and family
Annette Gordon-Reed is married to Robert Reed, a civil court judge in the Bronx, whom she met while at Harvard Law School. She lives on the Upper West SideUpper West Side
The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...
of New York with her husband and two children, Gordon and Susan.
Professional and academic career
Gordon-Reed spent her early career as an associate at Cahill Gordon & ReindelCahill Gordon & Reindel
Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP is a prominent New York-based international law firm with offices in New York, Washington, D.C. and London...
, and as Counsel to the New York City Board of Corrections. She speaks or moderates at numerous conferences across the country on history and law-related topics. She was a professor at New York Law School from 1992 until June 2010. She taught undergraduate and graduate-level courses in American History and American Studies at Rutgers-Newark in the spring from 2007 until June 2010. In 2010 she joined Harvard University with a joint appointment in history and law.
Her first book, published in 1997, was Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. The book sparked great interest from fellow scholars, as it investigated the long-standing historical controversy of whether Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
had a sexual relationship with his slave Sally Hemings
Sally Hemings
Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a mixed-race slave owned by President Thomas Jefferson through inheritance from his wife. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson by their father John Wayles...
and fathered children by her. Most academic historians had accepted Jefferson descendants' denials and regarded the assertion as a false charge intended by Jefferson's critics to damage his historical reputation. Jefferson's status as an icon also contributed to historians' reluctance to add the president to those planters and other white men who had relationships with their slaves, producing the many mixed-race children born into slavery. By the mid-1970s, some historians had begun to look more closely at the facts and thought the Hemings-Jefferson liaison was likely. Gordon-Reed "drew on her legal training to apply context and reasonable interpretation to the sparse documentation".
She identified a set of unexamined assumptions that had governed many Jefferson scholars' investigations. These assumptions were that white people tell the truth, black people lie, slave owners tell the truth, and slaves lie. Gordon-Reed cross-checked the versions of events provided by former Monticello slaves, such as Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings, born James Madison Hemings , was born into slavery as the son of the mixed-race slave Sally Hemings; he was freed after the death of his master Thomas Jefferson. Based on historical evidence, most historians believe that Jefferson, United States president, was his father...
, who claimed Jefferson as his father, and Isaac Jefferson
Isaac Jefferson
Isaac Jefferson, also likely known as Isaac Granger was a valued, enslaved artisan of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson; he crafted and repaired products as a tinsmith, blacksmith, and nailer at Monticello....
, who confirmed Jefferson's paternity of the Hemings children, against documented historical evidence to which they could not have had access. She similarly cross-checked oral traditions among Hemings descendants with primary sources such as Jefferson's papers and agricultural records. She noted facts which the white Jefferson descendants and historians had overlooked, which contradicted their assertion that Jefferson's Carr nephew had fathered the children. As the historian Winthrop Jordan had noted, Dumas Malone's timeline showed that Jefferson was at Monticello each time Hemings conceived. Gordon-Reed noted those were the only times she conceived. Her analysis led her to conclude that Jefferson and Hemings did have an intimate sexual relationship, though she did not try to characterize it. Reprinted in 1999, the new edition of the book has a foreword incorporating the 1998 DNA study.
Reports of a DNA study in 1998 showed there was a match between the Jefferson male line and an Eston Hemings descendants, with researchers' noting that, added to the body of historical evidence, this strongly suggested Thomas Jefferson was the father of the children. In addition, it conclusively showed there was no match between descendants of the Carr line, put forward by Wayles-Jefferson descendants as paternity candidates. In 2001 the National Genealogical Society
National Genealogical Society
The National Genealogical Society is a genealogical interest group founded in 1903 in Washington, D.C.. Its headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia....
published a special issue on the topic and concluded the that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Heming's children.
On February 28, 2011, Gordon-Reed was interviewed by Tavis Smiley
Tavis Smiley
Tavis Smiley is a talk show host, author, liberal political commentator, entrepreneur, advocate and philanthropist. Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi and grew up in Kokomo, Indiana. After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of...
about her latest historical work, a study of Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson was the 17th President of the United States . As Vice-President of the United States in 1865, he succeeded Abraham Lincoln following the latter's assassination. Johnson then presided over the initial and contentious Reconstruction era of the United States following the American...
, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln as president after his assassination. She believes that Johnson, although loyal to the Union, did not favor integration of the freedmen into America's mainstream and caused the delay of full emancipation. Although he was long considered a hero, his reputation became tainted after 1900, as white historians researched his actions or lack thereof regarding integration of African Americans. Gordon-Reed has noted that the abolitionist Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
realized Johnson was no friend of African Americans. Gordon-Reed argues in the book that much of the misery imposed on African Americans could have been avoided if they had been given portions of land to cultivate as their own. Without land, African Americans in the Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...
generally earned livings as sharecroppers, primarily (if not totally) under white land owners. They had few economic resources or choices and, often illiterate, were forced to accept the owner's reckoning of accounts at the end of the year. They often had to buy supplies at his store, which became part of the reckoning. She likens their situation to that of immigrant workers in the New York garment industry (sweat shops) in the 1890s, and coal miners, who were captives of mining company stores until the UMWA was founded in 1890.
Current activities
Building on her earlier study, Gordon-Reed wrote the first of two planned volumes of a history of the Hemings family. The first, which appeared in 2008, was The Hemingses of Monticello: An American FamilyThe Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family is a 2008 book by American historian Annette Gordon-Reed. It recounts the history of four generations of the African-American Hemings family, from their African and Virginia origins until the 1826 death of Thomas Jefferson, their master, Sally...
. The book has won the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for history and 15 additional awards; it was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
in Biography and the 2009 Mark Lynton History Prize
Mark Lynton History Prize
The Mark Lynton History Prize is an annual award in the amount of $10,000 given to a book "of history, on any subject, that best combines intellectual or scholarly distinction with felicity of expression"...
.:
In 2008:
- National Book AwardNational Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
for Nonfiction, and - Society for Historians of the Early American RepublicSociety for Historians of the Early American RepublicThe Society for Historians of the Early American Republic is an organization that was established in 1977 to study the history of the United States in the period between 1775 and 1861....
Book Award
In 2009:
- Pulitzer PrizePulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in History (she was the first African American to be awarded this prize) - George Washington Book PrizeGeorge Washington Book PrizeThe George Washington Book Prize was instituted in 2005 and is awarded annually to the best book on America's founding era, especially those that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of American history. It is administered by Washington College’s C.V...
, - Anisfield-Wolf Book Award,
- New Jersey Council of the Humanities Book Award,
- Frederick Douglass PrizeFrederick Douglass PrizeThe Frederick Douglass Book Prize is awarded by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, at Yale University.It is a $25,000 award for a book on the subject of slavery.-External links:*, CSPAN, February 28, 2002...
, - Owsley Award from the Southern Historical AssociationSouthern Historical AssociationThe Southern Historical Association is an organization of historians focusing on the history of the Southern United States . It was organized on November 2, 1934...
, and - Library of VirginiaLibrary of VirginiaThe Library of Virginia in Richmond, Virginia, is the library agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia, its archival agency, and the reference library at the seat of government. The Library moved into a new building in 1997 and is located at 800 East Broad Street, 2 blocks from the Virginia State...
Literary Award
On February 25, 2010, President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
honored Annette Gordon-Reed with the National Humanities Medal
National Humanities Medal
The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened citizens’ engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand Americans’ access to important resources in the humanities.The award, given by the...
in a ceremony at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
; Gordon-Reed was one of 20 recipients of the nation's highest honors in the arts and the humanities.
On September 28, 2010, Gordon-Reed was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the "genius grants". The Foundation noted that her "persistent investigation into the life of an iconic American president has dramatically changed the course of Jeffersonian scholarship." In 2010 she joined the faculty of Harvard University, with a joint appointment in history and law.
Gordon-Reed has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
for Monticello Legacies in the New Age, 2009; and a Cullman Center Fellowship from the New York Public Library for 2010-2011 to work on Monticello Legacies, an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Vernon Can Read!, 2002; a Trailblazer Award, Metropolitan Black Bar Association, 2002; Best Nonfiction Book for 2001, Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She was Columbia University’s Barbara A. Black Lecturer, 2001; and won a Bridging the Gap Award for fostering racial reconciliation, 2000. She holds honorary degrees, from Ramapo College
Ramapo College
Ramapo College of New Jersey is a public liberal arts and professional studies institution of the New Jersey system of higher education.- Location :...
in New Jersey and the College of William and Mary
College of William and Mary
The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States...
in May 2010.
External links
- http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/04/30_annette.html
- http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=860
- Booknotes interview with Gordon-Reed on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, February 21, 1999.
- VIDEO Annette Gordon-Reed talks at The University of Sydney on ABC Fora
- http://www.fordhamlawandculture.org/blog/2010/09/28/annette-gordon-reed-is-a-genius/