Alexis Coe

Last updated
Alexis Coe
Alexis Coe (cropped).jpg
OccupationHistorian
Years active2014–present
Notable works You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington

Alexis Coe is an American presidential historian, columnist, podcast host, exhibition curator and tv commenter. She is a senior fellow at New America, the American history columnist at the New York Times Book Review, and the author of award-winning Alice and Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis (2014) and the New York Times best-selling You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington (2020). [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Career

Coe was an oral historian for the Brooklyn Historical Society while in graduate school. She was a research curator in the New York Public Library’s exhibitions department where she co-curated "Find the Past, Know the Future," the most popular exhibition in the Library's history. [4] [5] [6]

Coe has been published in The New York Times , [7] The Atlantic , [8] Slate, [9] The New Yorker , [10] and The New York Times Magazine . [11]

Coe published Alice and Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis in 2014. [12] In 2016, Coe co-hosted the podcast Presidents Are People Too!. [13] In 2018, she hosted the podcast, No Man's Land, which was produced by the women's coworking space company The Wing. [14] It won a Webby award for Best Series. [15] Episodes have focused on Stephanie St. Clair, a leader of a Harlem-based criminal syndicate; Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-American artist; [16] and Ida B. Wells, a journalist and early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. [14]

In 2020, Coe published You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington, making her the first woman with a published biography of Washington in over a century.[ citation needed ] The book became a New York Times best-seller in February 2020 and was widely praised as genre-breaking. [3] [6] [17] [18]

Coe produced and starred in The History Channel's Washington series with Doris Kearns Goodwin. [19]

In 2023, she spoke on CBS News about the historical significance of the March 2023 Indictment of Donald Trump. [20] In 2025 Coe testified at the second hearing of the House Oversight Committee's "Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets". [21]

Personal life

Coe was raised in Los Angeles, California. She moved to New York to go to Columbia and Sarah Lawrence. She has written about her grandparents, who helped raise her. [22] She cared for her grandmother at the end of her life. [23] Coe shared a birthday with her maternal grandfather, who is her daughter's namesake. [24] She has an older brother. [23]

Coe lives in New York with her young daughter. [25] [26] [27] [28]

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ Alice and Frida Forever. Kirkus Reviews.
  2. ↑ "How historian Alexis Coe handles being the only woman in the room". TODAY. 8 July 2020. Retrieved 2021-03-29.
  3. 1 2 Egan, Elisabeth (2020-02-27). "Think You Know George Washington?". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-05-20.
  4. ↑ Ansley, Laura (2020-10-22). "Expanding the Genre: Alexis Coe Writes an Accessible Washington Biography". Perspectives on History .
  5. ↑ Wagner, Tony (2020-02-13). "Alexis Coe didn't realize all of the opportunities a history major brings". Marketplace. Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  6. 1 2 Shribman, David. "In 'You Never Forget Your First,' Alexis Coe offers a fresh look at a president without precedent - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  7. ↑ Coe, Alexis (2023-02-17). "Opinion | George Washington Would Hate Presidents' Day". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  8. ↑ Coe, Alexis (2013-03-04). "How Do Children of Gay Parents Feel About Getting Married?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  9. ↑ Coe, Alexis (2022-10-03). "What Being Unpopular Does to a First-Term President". Slate. ISSN   1091-2339 . Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  10. ↑ Coe, Alexis (2017-11-22). "What the Least Fun Founding Father Can Teach Us Now". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2023-02-01.
  11. ↑ Coe, Alexis (2017-02-16). "Letter of Recommendation: Presidential Biographies". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2023-02-01.
  12. ↑ "Books to Watch Out For: October". The New Yorker. 2014-10-02. Retrieved 2023-02-01.
  13. ↑ "A Conversation with Alexis Coe on You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington". lbjpodcast.com. Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  14. 1 2 Feller, Madison (November 16, 2018). "The Wing's New Podcast Wants to Rewrite Women's History". ELLE. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
  15. ↑ "The Wing's No Man's Land Podcast". Webby Awards . Retrieved December 7, 2025.
  16. ↑ Quah, Nicholas (December 20, 2018). "No Man's Land Explores the Forgotten Stories of Women's History". Vulture. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
  17. ↑ Andrews, Becca. "To know George Washington is not necessarily to love him. Just ask historian Alexis Coe". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  18. ↑ "You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe: 9780735224117 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 2023-02-01.
  19. ↑ "This Historian Could Change How You Think About George Washington". NowThis News. Retrieved 2023-04-20.
  20. ↑ Trump indictment a first in American politics, 4 April 2023, retrieved 2023-04-23
  21. ↑ Whiteside, Steph (20 May 2025). "Witnesses accuse CIA of obstructing JFK investigations". NewsNation.
  22. ↑ "I Think About This a Lot: This Photo of a Family Arriving at Ellis Island". 2 July 2018.
  23. 1 2 Coe, Alexis (March 4, 2014). "Grandma's Proxy". The Hairpin . Archived from the original on May 20, 2022.
  24. ↑ "Chernow Gonna Chernow". 30 January 2021.
  25. ↑ https://starrlibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2022-Report-to-the-Community-Final.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  26. ↑ "BIO".
  27. ↑ "The Duncan & Coe History Show: Season Zero Episode Zero". sites.libsyn.com. Retrieved 2024-11-04.
  28. ↑ "Case 2022-52851 Alexis Coe V. Anthony Lydgate - Trellis: Legal Intelligence + Judicial Analytics".
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