Annette Gordon-Reed

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

is an American historian and law professor. She is Annette Gordon-Reed
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.

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 Gordon-Reed in 2011
Humanities Medal and a MacArthur Fellowship.[2] Born Annette Gordon
Since 2018, she has served as a trustee of the National November 19, 1958
Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, NC. She Livingston, Texas, U.S.
was elected a Member of the American Philosophical
Education Dartmouth College (BA)
Society in 2019. She is a Trustee of the Gilder
Harvard University (JD)
Lehrman Institute of American History.[3]
Occupation(s) Professor, author, historian
Employer(s) Harvard Law School
Background and education Harvard University
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced
Gordon-Reed was born in Livingston, Texas, to Bettye Study
Jean Gordon and Alfred Gordon. She grew up in Jim Known for American Legal History,
Crow Conroe, Texas, and was the first black child in American Slavery and the Law
her elementary school.[4] In third grade she became Spouse Robert Reed
interested in Thomas Jefferson. She graduated from
Children 2
Dartmouth College in 1981 and Harvard Law School
in 1984, where she was a member of the Harvard Law Awards National Book Award for
Review.[5] Nonfiction, MacArthur
Fellowship, Pulitzer Prize for
History

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.

.[8]

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An

American Controversy (1997)
Her first book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An
American Controversy, sparked considerable interest from fellow
scholars, as it investigated and analyzed the long-standing Lee C. Bollinger, President of
historical controversy of whether Thomas Jefferson had a sexual Columbia University, presents the
relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and fathered children by 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History to
her. Most academic historians had accepted the denials of Annette Gordon-Reed
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.[9] Reprinted in 1999, her new edition of the book
has a foreword incorporating the 1998 DNA study.

Reception External videos

Gordon-Reed "drew on her legal training to apply context and Booknotes interview with
Gordon-Reed on Thomas
reasonable interpretation to the sparse documentation" and analyzed
Jefferson and Sally Hemings,
the historiography as well.[7] The writer Christopher Hitchens in
February 21, 1999 (https://ww
Slate described her analysis as "brilliant."
w.c-span.org/video/?119003-1/
Critics such as John Works and Robert F. Turner of the Thomas thomas-jefferson-sally-heming
Jefferson Heritage Society have pointed out several transcription s), C-SPAN[10]
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 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, but no such match for the Carrs.[12] Researchers noted that, when added to
the body of historical evidence, this strongly suggested Thomas Jefferson was the father of the
children.[13]

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.[14]

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[15][16] and 15 additional awards.[17]

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.[18]

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.[18]

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.[15][16][19] She won 15 additional awards for the book.[17][20][21]

2008

National Book Award for Nonfiction,[22]

Society for Historians of the Early American Republic Book Award

2009

Pulitzer Prize in History,

George Washington Book Prize,[23]
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award,[24]
New Jersey Council of the Humanities Book Award,[25]
Frederick Douglass Prize,[26]
Owsley Award from the Southern Historical Association,[27] and
Library of Virginia Literary Award.[15][27]

2010

On February 25, 2010, President Barack Obama honored Annette Gordon-Reed with the
National Humanities Medal, the highest national honor for the arts and humanities.[28]
 On September 28, 2010, Gordon-Reed was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.[29] The
Foundation noted that her "persistent investigation into the life of an iconic American
president has dramatically changed the course of Jeffersonian scholarship."[7]
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.[14]

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.[30]

2020

On July 28, 2020, she was named a University Professor, Harvard University's highest
faculty honor. Claudine Gay, the Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
and the Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government and of African and African-American
Studies, said, "This is a wonderful recognition of Annette's seminal contributions to our
understanding of American history, including our most harrowing tragedies and painful
contradictions. She reminds us of the transformative power of academic discovery. I am
thrilled by this appointment."[31]
2021

On July 23, 2021, she was elected a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.[32]

2022

In 2022, she was named a Vincent J. Dooley Distinguished Teaching Fellow by the Georgia
Historical Society. The honor recognizes national leaders in the field of history as both
writers and educators whose research has enhanced or changed the way the public
understands the past.[33]

Bibliography (books only)

1997 – Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=oj_WuD7ysVUC) (University of Virginia Press)
1998 – reprint with new foreword discussing DNA evidence
2001 – Vernon Can Read!: A Memoir (with Vernon Jordan) (PublicAffairs)
2002 – Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History (Oxford University Press)
2008 – The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W. W. Norton & Company)
2011 – Andrew Johnson: The American Presidents Series—The 17th President, 1865–1869
(Times Books/Henry Holt)
2016 – Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination
(Liveright)[34]
 2021 – On Juneteenth (Liveright)

References
1. Jennie Yabroff (October 4, 2008). "Annette Gordon-Reed on the Sally Hemings Saga" (htt
p://www.newsweek.com/2008/10/03/a-lawyer-s-new-jefferson-memorial.html). Newsweek.
Retrieved September 11, 2010.
2. "Professor Annette Gordon-Reed '84 wins a MacArthur Fellowship (audio)" (https://today.la
w.harvard.edu/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" (https://www.
gilderlehrman.org/about/board-trustees-and-officers).
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" (https://www.
wabe.org/pulitzer-prize-winning-author-annette-gordon-reeds-new-book-on-juneteenth-exa
mines-the-holiday-through-a-personal-lens/). WABE-FM (Interview). Atlanta, Georgia:
Atlanta Public Schools. 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" (http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/201
0/04/30_annette.html). Recent News and Spotlights, April 30, 2010. Harvard Law School.
6. Finn, Robin (June 28, 2009). "Only a Brief Pause for Rest" (https://www.nytimes.com/2009/0
6/28/nyregion/28routine.html). New York Times.
7. "Annette Gordon-Reed" (https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2010/annette-gordon-re
ed). MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved February 16, 2023.
8. Professor Annette Gordon-Reed. "Professor Annette Gordon-Reed" (https://www.queens.ox.
ac.uk/people/professor-annette-gordon-reed/). Retrieved September 30, 2024.
9. Gordon-Reed, Annette (1997). Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American
controversy (https://books.google.com/books?id=riO6QmWK2WIC). University Press of
Virginia. ISBN 978-0-8139-1698-9. Excerpt (http://www.cnn.com/books/beginnings/9903/tho
mas.jefferson/).
10. "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings" (https://www.c-span.org/video/?119003-1/thomas-jef
ferson-sally-hemings). C-SPAN. February 21, 1999. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
11. "The Dialogue Between John Works and Annette Gordon-Reed and the Dean of New York
Law School" (https://www.tjheritage.org/dialogue-between-john-works-annette-gordon-reed).
Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society.
12. Foster, Eugene A.; Jobling, M.A.; Taylor, P.G.; Donnelly, P.; de Knijff, P.; Mieremet, Rene;
Zerjal, T.; Tyler-Smith, C. (1988). "Jefferson fathered slave's last child" (https://www.nature.c
om/articles/23835). Nature. 396 (27–28): 27–28. doi:10.1038/23835 (https://doi.org/10.103
8%2F23835). PMID 9817200 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9817200). Retrieved
August 20, 2024.
13. Haigney, Peter (August 28, 2006). "Rutgers-Newark appoints nationally renowned
presidential scholar to faculty" (https://web.archive.org/web/20060901114616/http://www.ne
wark.rutgers.edu/news/index.php?sId=viewArticle&ArticleID=5311&prevTitle=Top+Stories&p
revURL=index.php) (Press release). Newark, New Jersey: Rutgers University. Archived from
the original (http://www.newark.rutgers.edu/news/index.php?sId=viewArticle&ArticleID=5311
&prevTitle=Top+Stories&prevURL=index.php) on September 1, 2006.
14. "Annette Gordon-Reed '84 to join the Harvard faculty" (http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/201
0/04/30_annette.html). Law.harvard.edu. April 30, 2010. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
15. Star-Ledger, Paul Cox/The (April 21, 2009). "Rutgers-Newark prof Annette Gordon-Reed
wins Pulitzer Prize in history" (https://www.nj.com/news/2009/04/rutgersnewark_prof_annett
e_gor.html). nj.
16. "History" (http://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/220). Past winners & finalists by
category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2016-10-20.
17. Jennie Yabroff, "A Lawyer's New Jefferson Memorial: The next chapter in the Hemings
saga" (http://www.newsweek.com/id/162266), Newsweek On Conversations With Allan
Wolper (http://www.wbgo.org/wolper) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2014101023491
7/http://www.wbgo.org/wolper) 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.
18. Interview with Annette Gordon-Reed, Tavis Smiley show, 28 February 2011
19. Michael Bandler, "Pulitzer Prize for Drama Honors Play about Women in Wartime Congo:
Biography, Fiction, History, Music, Nonfiction, Poetry Winners Also Named" (https://www.am
erica.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2009/April/20090423165305GLnesnoM0.1744043.html)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20110207150726/http://www.america.gov/st/peoplepl
ace-english/2009/April/20090423165305GLnesnoM0.1744043.html) February 7, 2011, at
the Wayback Machine
20. Hoffert, Barbara. "2008 NBCC Finalists Announced]" (https://web.archive.org/web/20090601
155745/http://bookcritics.org/news/archive/2008_nbcc_finalists_announced/). Archived from
the original (http://bookcritics.org/news/archive/2008_nbcc_finalists_announced/) on June 1,
2009. Retrieved October 9, 2009.
21. "Columbia University" (https://web.archive.org/web/20100623043744/http://www.journalism.
columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/1175372505012/page/1212611046533/simplepage.htm).
Archived from the original (http://www.journalism.columbia.edu/cs/ContentServer/jrn/117537
2505012/page/1212611046533/simplepage.htm) on June 23, 2010.
22. "National Book Awards – 2008" (https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-
awards-2008). National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-03-24.
(With acceptance speech by Gordon-Reed and interview.)
23. " "2009 George Washington Book Prize Awarded at Mount Vernon" " (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20110719004059/http://news.washcoll.edu/events/2009/05/gwbookprize/). Archived
from the original (http://news.washcoll.edu/events/2009/05/gwbookprize/) on July 19, 2011.
Retrieved October 9, 2009.
24. "Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards :: 2006 Winners" (http://www.anisfield-wolf.org/Winners/).
Anisfield-wolf.org. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20100823092706/http://www.anisfi
eld-wolf.org/Winners/) from the original on August 23, 2010. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
25. "Awards – NJCH Annual Book Award" (https://web.archive.org/web/20101125190430/http://
njch.org/awards_bookaward.html). NJCH. Archived from the original (http://www.njch.org/aw
ards_bookaward.html) on November 25, 2010. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
26. "New York Law School Professor Wins $25,000 Frederick Douglass Book Prize" (https://we
b.archive.org/web/20100329124744/http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/2009.htm). Archived
from the original (http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/2009.htm) on March 29, 2010. Retrieved
October 9, 2009.
27. "Library of Virginia Literary Award | W. W. Norton & Company" (http://books.wwnorton.com/b
ooks/book-template.aspx?aid=1864&cid=57768&lastPage=1&currentPage=1&sortparam=S
ortDate). Books.wwnorton.com. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
28. "Obama honors leaders in arts and humanities" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/c
ontent/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022504028.html). washingtonpost.com. February 26,
2010. Retrieved September 11, 2010.
29. "Annette Gordon-Reed" (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130180642),
NPR
30. "Annette Gordon-Reed: The Two Lives of Thomas Jefferson" (https://www.wbgo.org/show/c
onversations-with-allan-wolper/2011-08-11/annette-gordon-reed-the-two-lives-of-thomas-jeff
erson). WBGO.
31. "Annette Gordon-Reed named Harvard University Professor" (https://news.harvard.edu/gaz
ette/story/2020/07/annette-gordon-reed-named-harvard-university-professor/). July 28,
2020.
32. "The British Academy elects 84 new Fellows recognising outstanding achievement in the
humanities and social sciences" (https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/the-british-acad
emy-elects-84-new-fellows-recognising-outstanding-achievement-in-the-humanities-and-soc
ial-sciences/). The British Academy. July 23, 2021. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20
210723020001/https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/the-british-academy-elects-84-ne
w-fellows-recognising-outstanding-achievement-in-the-humanities-and-social-sciences/)
from the original on July 23, 2021. Retrieved January 22, 2022.
33. "Dooley Distinguished Teaching Fellows" (https://www.georgiahistory.com/learn-and-explore/
vincent-j-dooley-distinguished-fellows-program/distinguished-teaching-fellows/). Georgia
Historical Society. Retrieved May 1, 2024.
34. " 'Most Blessed of the Patriarchs' " (https://wwnorton.com/books/Most-Blessed-of-the-Patriar
chs/). wwnorton.com.

External links
"Annette Gordon-Reed" (http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=860).
Harvard Faculty Directory
Appearances (https://www.c-span.org/person/?48342) on C-SPAN
Annette Gordon-Reed talks at The University of Sydney (https://web.archive.org/web/20090
528223750/http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/stories/2009/04/23/2550940.htm) on ABC Fora (htt
ps://web.archive.org/web/20100515111448/http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/default.htm)
VIDEO
"Annette Gordon-Reed Receives MacArthur Genius Grant" (https://web.archive.org/web/201
01005223414/http://www.fordhamlawandculture.org/blog/2010/09/28/annette-gordon-reed-is
-a-genius/). Archived from the original (http://www.fordhamlawandculture.org/blog/2010/09/2
8/annette-gordon-reed-is-a-genius/) on October 5, 2010. Retrieved October 8, 2010.

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