Alan Pell Crawford

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Alan Pell Crawford (born 1953) is an American author and journalist who, in his books and articles, has written on the period of the United States' founding and, in a recent departure, published How Not to Get Rich: The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain.

Contents

His previous book, Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson, a Washington Post best-seller, casts new light on the retirement of the nation’s third president and author of the Declaration of Independence. [1] His new book This Fierce People: The Untold Story of America's Revolutionary War in the South, was published in 2024.

Career

A journalist and political analyst, a former U.S. Senate speechwriter and congressional press secretary, [2] Crawford is also a public speaker, who has spoken at the Union Club of the City of New York, [3] Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., [4] and the Virginia Center for History and Culture, [5] as well as historical societies and book groups, and been interviewed on the Motley Fool podcast, [6] and Biographers International Organization podcast, [7] as well as Coast to Coast AM. [8] Crawford has been a resident scholar at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, [9] at the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello [10] and at the Boston Athenaeum. [11]

His articles, essays and reviews have been published in The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , [12] The Washington Post'', [13] the Nation, National Review , [14] and the Weekly Standard . [15]

Crawford first came to national attention in 1977, with an article in The Nation , entitled "Richard Viguerie’s Bid for Power." The first major investigative reporting on the self-described New Right in American politics, the article drew on Crawford’s own experience in Washington’s emerging “conservative movement.” “Richard Viguerie’s Bid for Power” was expanded in book form in Thunder on the Right: The ‘New Right’ and the Politics of Resentment, Crawford’s first book, published in 1980. [16]

Crawford wrote his second book about Ann Cary Randolph Morris entitled Unwise Passions: The True Story of a Remarkable Woman and the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth-Century America, published in 2000, using sources from archives throughout the United States. His third book, Twilight at Monticello, published in 2008, also drew on primary sources to cast new light on the debt-ridden retirement of Thomas Jefferson. [17] The post-presidential years were also those in which Jefferson’s views on a range of important questions—on the nature of constitutional government, on the institution of slavery and on the future of the American experiment in self-government—underwent significant changes. [18] The Associated Press stated that in the Twilight at Monticello Crawford “had access to thousands of family letters—some previously unexamined by historians—that he used to create his portrait of the complex idealist, [and] there are some surprising tidbits to be found.” [19]

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Jefferson</span> Founding Father, president of the United States from 1801 to 1809

Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, planter, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Following the American Revolutionary War and before becoming president in 1801, Jefferson was the nation's first U.S. secretary of state under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president under John Adams. Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, and produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monticello</span> Primary residence of U.S. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson

Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at the age of 14. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5,000 acres (20 km2), with Jefferson using the forced labor of black slaves for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets. Due to its architectural and historic significance, the property has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987, Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The United States nickel has featured a depiction of Monticello on its reverse since 1938.

Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a female slave with one-quarter African ancestry and was a nanny, who was owned by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson, one of many he inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Twain</span> American author and humorist (1835–1910)

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." He also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gouverneur Morris</span> American Founding Father and politician

Gouverneur Morris was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution. He wrote the Preamble to the United States Constitution and has been called the "Penman of the Constitution". While most Americans still thought of themselves as citizens of their respective states, Morris advanced the idea of being a citizen of a single union of states. He was also one of the most outspoken opponents of slavery among those who were present at the Constitutional Congress. He represented New York in the United States Senate from 1800 to 1803.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avatar Press</span> American independent comic book publisher

Avatar Press is an independent American comic book publisher founded in 1996 by William A. Christensen, and based in Rantoul, Illinois. It was originally known for publishing bad girl comics, such as Pandora, Hellina, Lookers, The Ravening, and Brian Pulido's Lady Death. Later the company became better known for publishing particularly violent titles by popular and critically acclaimed writers such as Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Jonathan Hickman, and Kieron Gillen.

Eston Hemings Jefferson was born into slavery at Monticello, the youngest son of Sally Hemings, a mixed-race enslaved woman. Most historians who have considered the question believe that his father was Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. Evidence from a 1998 DNA test showed that a descendant of Eston matched the Jefferson male line, and historical evidence also supports the conclusion that Thomas Jefferson was probably Eston's father. Many historians believe that Jefferson and Sally Hemings had six children together, four of whom survived to adulthood. Other historians disagree.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Viguerie</span> American conservative figure (born 1933)

Richard Art Viguerie is an American conservative figure, pioneer of political direct mail and writer on politics. He is the current chairman of ConservativeHQ.com.

The Battle of Black Mingo was a skirmish during the American Revolution. It took place in September 29, 1780 in the vicinity of Dollard's Tavern at Willtown near Rhems, South Carolina. General Francis Marion leading Revolutionary forces attacked and scattered a contingent of Loyalist troops that had been left to secure the region by British Colonel Banastre Tarleton after his destructive march through the area.

<i>The Hemingses of Monticello</i> 2008 book by Annette Gordon-Reed

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 and the father of Sally Hemings' children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annette Gordon-Reed</span> American historian

Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and law professor. She is currently the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University and a professor of history in the university's Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She is formerly the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Gordon-Reed is noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson regarding his relationship with Sally Hemings and her children.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, owned more than 600 slaves during his adult life. Jefferson freed two slaves while he lived, and five others were freed after his death, including two of his children from his relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. His other two children with Hemings were allowed to escape without pursuit. After his death, the rest of the slaves were sold to pay off his estate's debts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States</span> 1824–25 tour by Revolutionary War general de Lafayette

From July 1824 to September 1825, the French Marquis de Lafayette, the last surviving major general of the American Revolutionary War, made a tour of the 24 states in the United States. He was received by the populace with a hero's welcome at many stops, and many honors and monuments were presented to commemorate and memorialize the visit.

Mark Dawidziak is an American author and critic.

Harriet Hemings was born into slavery at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, in the first year of his presidency. Most historians believe her father was Jefferson, who is now believed to have fathered, with his slave Sally Hemings, four children who survived to adulthood.

The bibliography of Thomas Jefferson refers to published works about Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States. Biographical and political accounts for Jefferson now span across three centuries.

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson is a multi-volume scholarly edition devoted to the publication of the public and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. The project, established at Princeton University, is the definitive edition of documents written by or to Jefferson. Work on the series began in 1944 and was undertaken solely at Princeton until 1998, when responsibility for editing documents from Jefferson's post-presidential retirement years, 1809 until 1826, shifted to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello. This enabled work to progress simultaneously on two different periods of Jefferson's life and thereby doubled the production of volumes without compromising the high standards set for the project.

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, originally known as the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation founded in 1923 to purchase and maintain Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. The Foundation's initial focus was on architectural preservation, with the goal of restoring Monticello as close to its original appearance as possible. It has since grown to include other historic and cultural pursuits and programs such as its Annual Independence Day Celebration and Naturalization Ceremony. It also publishes and provides a center for scholarship on Jefferson and his era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Cary Randolph Morris</span>

Ann Cary Randolph Morris was the daughter of Thomas Mann Randolph Sr. and the wife of Gouverneur Morris. Books have been written about the scandal in which she was embroiled in central Virginia as a young woman after the death of her fiance. After she married Gouverneur Morris in New York, she regained much of her favorable social prominence until he died in 1816. She was devoted to their son, Gouverneur Morris Jr. (1813–1888), whom she called her "richest treasure.” They lived at Morrisania. He had the St. Ann's Episcopal Church in Bronx built in her memory.

<i>The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes</i> Collection of Sherlock Holmes pastiches, published in 1944

The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes is an anthology of thirty-three Sherlock Holmes pastiches and parodies, first published in 1944.

References

  1. "Alan Pell Crawford - Penguin Random House". www.randomhouse.com.
  2. "The Essentials: Five Books on Thomas Jefferson".
  3. "Weekend Reading: How Not to Get Rich". December 2017.
  4. "Alan Pell Crawford - How Not to Get Rich: The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain".
  5. "Jefferson, Paine, and Monroe: The American Revolution's Authentic Revolutionaries".[ permanent dead link ]
  6. "The Financial Foibles of Mark Twain".
  7. "Podcast Episode #4 – Alan Pell Crawford". Archived from the original on 2019-05-10. Retrieved 2019-05-10.
  8. "Alan Pell Crawford".
  9. "An acclaimed Richmond author takes up residence at George Washington's home".
  10. "Fellows: 1995-2019".
  11. "Past Fellows".
  12. "Railbirds Are All the Same, Even Long-Lost Russian Counts".
  13. "A House Called Bizarre". The Washington Post. 2000-11-26.
  14. "Righteous Rebel". 2009-01-21.
  15. "Out With The In-Crowd". 1999-02-15. Archived from the original on December 15, 2018.
  16. Herbers, John (1981-06-27). "Extreme and Pure". The New York Times.
  17. "Twilight at Monticello by Alan Pell Crawford". 2008-02-24.
  18. "Bookmarks". The Wall Street Journal. 18 January 2008 via www.wsj.com.
  19. Archived 2018-06-29 at the Wayback Machine
  20. "Unwise Passions: A True Story of a Remarkable Woman---And the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth-Century America by Alan Pell Crawford". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 2024-07-03.
  21. Piepenbring, Dan (2017-10-25). "How Mark Twain Tried to Get Rich Quick—Again and Again". The New Yorker. ISSN   0028-792X . Retrieved 2024-07-03.
  22. Swaim, Barton (June 28, 2024). "'This Fierce People' Review: Fighting the British Down South". Wall Street Journal.
  23. Brack, Andy (2024-06-29). "Brack: New book dives into S.C.'s role in Revolutionary War". Charleston City Paper. Retrieved 2024-07-03.

Further reading