Annette Gordon-Reed

Last updated

Annette Gordon-Reed
Annette Gordon Reed NBCC 2011 Shankbone.jpg
Gordon-Reed in 2011
Born
Annette Gordon

(1958-11-19) November 19, 1958 (age 65)
Livingston, Texas, U.S.
Education Dartmouth College (BA)
Harvard University (JD)
Occupation(s) Professor, author, historian
Employer(s) Harvard Law School
Harvard University
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
Known forAmerican Legal History, American Slavery and the Law
SpouseRobert Reed
Children2
Awards National Book Award for Nonfiction, MacArthur Fellowship, Pulitzer Prize for History

Annette Gordon-Reed (born November 19, 1958) [1] 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.

Contents

She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Award for Nonfiction and 15 other prizes in 2009 for her work on the Hemings family of Monticello. In 2010, she received the National Humanities Medal and a MacArthur Fellowship. [2] Since 2018, she has served as a trustee of the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, NC. She was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019. She is a Trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. [3]

Background and education

Gordon-Reed was born in Livingston, Texas, to Bettye Jean Gordon and Alfred Gordon. She grew up in Jim Crow Conroe, Texas, and was the first black child in her elementary school. [4] In third grade she became interested in Thomas Jefferson. She graduated from Dartmouth College in 1981 and Harvard Law School in 1984, where she was a member of the Harvard Law Review . [5]

Marriage and family

Gordon-Reed is married to Robert R. Reed, a justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, whom she met while at Harvard Law School. She lives on the Upper West Side of New York with her husband and two children, Gordon and Susan. [6]

Professional and academic career

Gordon-Reed spent her early career as an associate at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, 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 previously Wallace Stevens Professor of Law at New York Law School (1992–2010) and Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers University, Newark (2007–2010). [7]

In 2010, she joined Harvard University with joint appointments in history and law, and as Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2012, she was appointed the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at HLS. In 2014, she was the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth Visiting professor at Queen's College, University of Oxford.

Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University, presents the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History to Annette Gordon-Reed. Annette Gordon-Reed and Lee C. Bollinger (2009).jpg
Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University, presents the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History to Annette Gordon-Reed.

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (1997)

Her first book sparked considerable interest from fellow scholars, as it investigated and analyzed 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 the denials of Jefferson descendants and their assertion that the late Peter Carr (a married nephew of Jefferson) was the father. Biographer James Parton adopted this alternative account to rumors about Jefferson's paternity, as did succeeding historians for more than 100 years.

As some historians began to reinvestigate Jefferson in the late twentieth century, his defenders responded as if assertions of his paternity were intended to damage his historical reputation, despite the widespread acknowledgement by then of the numerous interracial liaisons in Jefferson's time. In 1974, Fawn M. Brodie wrote the first biography of Jefferson to seriously examine the evidence related to Sally Hemings; she thought the Hemings-Jefferson liaison was likely.

Gordon-Reed analyzed the historiography and identified the set of unexamined assumptions that had governed the investigations by many Jefferson scholars. 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 Thomas 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 against such primary sources as Jefferson's papers and agricultural records. She demonstrated errors made by historians, and noted facts overlooked by the white Jefferson descendants and historians, which contradicted their assertions that one or more of Jefferson's Carr nephews had fathered the children.

As the historian Winthrop Jordan had noted, which was also noted by Brodie, historian Dumas Malone's extensive documentation of Jefferson's travels showed that Jefferson was at Monticello during the period of time when Hemings conceived each of her known children, and that she never conceived when he was not there. Gordon-Reed noted that all of Sally Hemings' children were freed. They were the only slave family to gain such freedom, which was consistent with what Madison said Jefferson had promised to his mother, Sally Hemings. Gordon-Reed concluded that Jefferson and Hemings did have a sexual relationship, though she did not try to characterize it. [8] Reprinted in 1999, her new edition of the book has a foreword incorporating the 1998 DNA study.

External videos
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Booknotes interview with Gordon-Reed on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, February 21, 1999, C-SPAN [9]

Reception

Gordon-Reed "drew on her legal training to apply context and reasonable interpretation to the sparse documentation" and analyzed the historiography as well. [7] The writer Christopher Hitchens in Slate described her analysis as "brilliant."

Critics such as John Works and Robert F. Turner of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society 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. [10]

Gordon-Reed's study stimulated a revival of interest in this topic. In 1998 a Y-DNA study was conducted of direct male descendants of the Jefferson male line, Eston Hemings line, and Carrs, as this DNA is passed down virtually unchanged. There was a Y-DNA match between the Jefferson male line and a male descendant of Eston Hemings. Researchers noted that, when added to the body of historical evidence, this strongly suggested Thomas Jefferson was the father of the children. [11] In addition, the DNA analysis conclusively excluded descendants of the Carr line as a match for the Hemings descendant. Neither of the Carr nephews could have been the father of Hemings's children. The findings received national attention, with PBS devoting a lengthy program to the issues. They have stimulated new scholarship. Major groups and historians have re-assessed their evaluation of historical evidence related to this issue.

In 2000, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which operates Monticello, announced that its internal study had concluded that Jefferson was likely the father of Eston and all of Hemings' children. It has since changed its exhibits, programming, academic research and other materials to reflect this. In 2001 the National Genealogical Society published a special issue on the topic; its specialists demonstrated how their review of the weight of evidence led them to conclude that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Hemings's children. [12]

The William and Mary Quarterly devoted an issue to the topic in 2001. In June 2018, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation mounted an exhibit at Monticello, The Life of Sally Hemings, which affirms that Jefferson fathered her children. This follows a major traveling exhibit in 2012 on Jefferson as a slaveholder and accounts of several major slave families at Monticello, including the Hemingses.[ citation needed ]

Some historians disagree with the current consensus. The Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society was formed as a "response to efforts by many historical revisionists to inaccurately portray Thomas Jefferson as a liar, fraud, hypocrite, and child molesting slave rapist." [13] It commissioned a study which contradicted the findings of Gordon-Reed and other Jefferson scholars. [14]

Vernon Can Read! (2001)

This memoir of Vernon Jordan, the civil rights activist, written with him, portrayed his life from childhood through the 1980s. It won the Best Nonfiction Book for 2001 from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. In 2002 it won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a Trailblazer Award from the Metropolitan Black Bar Association. [15]

The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (2008)

In 2008 Gordon-Reed published The Hemingses of Monticello , the first volume of a planned two-volume history on the Hemings family and their descendants, bringing a slave family to life on their own terms. She traced the many descendants of Elizabeth Hemings and their families during the time that they lived at Monticello; she had 75 descendants there. It was widely praised for its groundbreaking treatment of an extended slave family. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History [16] [17] and 15 additional awards. [18]

Andrew Johnson (2011)

In 2011, Gordon-Reed published a biography of the US post-Civil War president Andrew Johnson and his historical reputation. She notes that he did not favor integration of freedmen into America's mainstream and caused the delay of their 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. [19]

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. [19]

Awards and recognition

Gordon-Reed was the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for History, for her 2008 work on the Hemings family. [16] [17] [20] She won 15 additional awards for the book. [18] [21] [22]

2008
2009
2010

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. 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. [15]

On March 7, 2009, she was interviewed on the WBGO program Conversations with Allan Wolper. She discussed the intimate relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, as well as issues that American black women face today. [31]

2020

2021

Bibliography (books only)

Related Research Articles

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

Randolph Jefferson was the younger brother of Thomas Jefferson, the only male sibling to survive infancy. He was a planter and owner of the Snowden plantation that he inherited from his father. He served the local militia for about ten years, making captain of the local militia in 1794. He also served during the Revolutionary War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wayles Eppes</span> American politician (1772–1823)

John Wayles Eppes was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1803 to 1811 and again from 1813 to 1815. He also served in the U.S. Senate (1817–1819). His positions in Congress occurred after he served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Chesterfield County (1801–1803).

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.

The Jefferson–Hemings controversy is a historical debate over whether there was a sexual relationship between the widowed U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and his slave and sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, and whether he fathered some or all of her six recorded children. For more than 150 years, most historians denied rumors that he had a slave concubine, Sally Hemings. Based on his grandson's report, they said that one of his nephews had been the father of Hemings's children. In the 21st century, most historians agree that Jefferson is the father of one or more of Sally's children.

<i>Thomas Jefferson</i> (film) 1997 American film

Thomas Jefferson is a 1997 two-part American documentary film directed and produced by Ken Burns. It covers the life and times of Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madison Hemings</span> American freed slave (1805–1877)

Madison Hemings was the son of the mixed-race enslaved woman Sally Hemings and, according to most Jefferson scholars, her enslaver, President Thomas Jefferson. He was the third of her four children to survive to adulthood. Born into slavery, according to partus sequitur ventrem, Hemings grew up on Jefferson's Monticello plantation, where his mother was also enslaved. After some light duties as a young boy, Hemings became a carpenter and fine woodwork apprentice at around age 14 and worked in the joiner's shop until he was about 21. He learned to play the violin and was able to earn money by growing cabbages. Jefferson died in 1826, after which Sally Hemings was "given her time" by Jefferson's surviving daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monticello Association</span>

The Monticello Association is a non-profit organization founded in 1913 to care for, preserve, and continue the use of the family graveyard at Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. The organization's members are lineal descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. The site is located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia. Thomas Jefferson was the designer, builder, owner, and, with his family, a first resident of Monticello.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Jefferson Randolph</span> American politician

Thomas Jefferson Randolph of Albemarle County was a Virginia planter, soldier and politician who served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, as rector of the University of Virginia, and as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The favorite grandson of President Thomas Jefferson, he helped manage Monticello near the end of his grandfather's life and was executor of his estate, and later also served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 and at the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861.

Winthrop Donaldson Jordan was an American historian and professor who specialized in the history of slavery in the United States and racism against Black Americans. His 1968 work White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 was awarded the National Book Award in History and Biography.

<i>American Sphinx</i> 1996 book about Thomas Jefferson written by Joseph Ellis

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, is a 1996 book written by Joseph Ellis, a professor of history at Mount Holyoke College. It won the 1997 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Mary Hemings Bell was born into slavery, most likely in Charles City County, Virginia, as the oldest child of Elizabeth Hemings, a mixed-race slave held by John Wayles. After the death of Wayles in 1773, Elizabeth, Mary, and her family were inherited by Thomas Jefferson, the husband of Martha Wayles Skelton, a daughter of Wayles, and all moved to Monticello.

James Hemings (1765–1801) was the first American to train as a chef in France. Three-quarters white in ancestry, he was born into slavery in Virginia in 1765. At eight years old, he was purchased by Thomas Jefferson at his residence of Monticello.

Elizabeth Hemings was an enslaved mixed-race woman in colonial Virginia. With her owner, planter John Wayles, she had six children, including Sally Hemings. These children were three-quarters white, and, following the condition of their mother, they were enslaved from birth; they were half-siblings to Wayles's daughter, Martha Jefferson. After Wayles died, the Hemings family and some 120 other enslaved people were inherited, along with 11,000 acres and £4,000 debt, as part of his estate by his daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Jefferson.

<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.

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.

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.

Israel Jefferson, known as Israel Gillette before 1844, was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. He worked as a domestic servant close to Jefferson for years, and also rode with his brothers as a postilion for the landau carriage.

Martin Hemings was an American man enslaved to Thomas Jefferson. He worked as Jefferson's butler at Monticello.

The Hemings family lived in Virginia in the 1700s and 1800s. The family consisted of Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings and her children and other descendants. They were enslaved people with at least one ancestor who had lived in Africa and been brought over the Atlantic Ocean in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some of them became free later in their lives. For part of their history, they were enslaved to the Eppes family, to the Wayles family, and to Thomas Jefferson. The Hemingses were the largest family to live at Jefferson's house, Monticello.

References

  1. ↑ Jennie Yabroff (October 4, 2008). "Annette Gordon-Reed on the Sally Hemings Saga". Newsweek. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
  2. ↑ "Professor Annette Gordon-Reed '84 wins a MacArthur Fellowship (audio)". Harvard Law Today.
  3. ↑ "Board of Trustees and Officers | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History".
  4. ↑ EVANS, SUMMER (June 18, 2021). "Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Annette Gordon-Reed's New Book, 'On Juneteenth' Examines The Holiday Through A Personal Lens". WABE-FM . Atlanta, Georgia . Retrieved July 21, 2021. born in Livingston, Texas, which was segregated, and then when I was about six months old, moved to Conroe, Texas, where I grew up. I had the experience as a six-year-old of integrating our town's schools,
  5. ↑ "Annette Gordon-Reed '84 to join the Harvard faculty". Recent News and Spotlights, April 30, 2010. Harvard Law School.
  6. ↑ Finn, Robin (June 28, 2009). "Only a Brief Pause for Rest" . New York Times.
  7. 1 2 3 "Annette Gordon-Reed". MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
  8. ↑ "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy". cnn. March 3, 1999. Retrieved December 15, 2014.
  9. ↑ "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings". C-SPAN. February 21, 1999. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
  10. ↑ "The Dialogue Between John Works and Annette Gordon-Reed and the Dean of New York Law School". Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society.
  11. ↑ "Annette Gordon-Reed: Rutgers-Newark Appoints Nationally Renowned Presidential Scholar to Faculty", History News Network. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
  12. ↑ National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 89, No. 3, September 2001, p. 207
  13. ↑ "Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society". Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society. Retrieved November 6, 2022.
  14. ↑ "Fauquier Heritage Institute News Release". Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society. Retrieved November 6, 2022.
  15. 1 2 "Annette Gordon-Reed '84 to join the Harvard faculty". Law.harvard.edu. April 30, 2010. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
  16. 1 2 3 "Rutgers-Newark prof Annette Gordon-Reed wins Pulitzer Prize"
  17. 1 2 "History". Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2016-10-20.
  18. 1 2 Jennie Yabroff, "A Lawyer's New Jefferson Memorial: The next chapter in the Hemings saga", Newsweek On Conversations With Allan Wolper Archived 2014-10-10 at the Wayback Machine (March 7, 2009), Ms. Gordon-Reed said one of the reasons she wrote the book was to prove that African Americans could write about white politicians.
  19. 1 2 Interview with Annette Gordon-Reed, Tavis Smiley show, 28 February 2011
  20. ↑ Michael Bandler, "Pulitzer Prize for Drama Honors Play about Women in Wartime Congo: Biography, Fiction, History, Music, Nonfiction, Poetry Winners Also Named" Archived February 7, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  21. ↑ Hoffert, Barbara. "2008 NBCC Finalists Announced]". Archived from the original on June 1, 2009. Retrieved October 9, 2009.
  22. ↑ Columbia University Archived June 23, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  23. ↑ "National Book Awards – 2008". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-24.
    (With acceptance speech by Gordon-Reed and interview.)
  24. ↑ ""2009 George Washington Book Prize Awarded at Mount Vernon"". Archived from the original on July 19, 2011. Retrieved October 9, 2009.
  25. ↑ "Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards :: 2006 Winners". Anisfield-wolf.org. Archived from the original on August 23, 2010. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
  26. ↑ "Awards – NJCH Annual Book Award". NJCH. Archived from the original on November 25, 2010. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
  27. ↑ "New York Law School Professor Wins $25,000 Frederick Douglass Book Prize". Archived from the original on March 29, 2010. Retrieved October 9, 2009.
  28. 1 2 "Library of Virginia Literary Award | W. W. Norton & Company". Books.wwnorton.com. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
  29. ↑ "Obama honors leaders in arts and humanities". washingtonpost.com. February 26, 2010. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
  30. ↑ "Annette Gordon-Reed", NPR
  31. ↑ "ANNETTE GORDON-REED AND ALLAN WOLPER"
  32. ↑ "Annette Gordon-Reed named Harvard University Professor". July 28, 2020.
  33. ↑ "The British Academy elects 84 new Fellows recognising outstanding achievement in the humanities and social sciences". The British Academy. July 23, 2021. Archived from the original on July 23, 2021. Retrieved January 22, 2022.
  34. ↑ http://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/220
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.