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Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of law at New York Law School since 1992 and winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in History for her book The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W. W. Norton, 2008), is recognized as one of our country's most distinguished presidential scholars.
Professor Gordon-Reed earned a place in history with her first book, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (University Press of Virginia, 1997), which had an acclaimed but stormy reception when published in 1997, and which The New Yorker described as "brilliant."
She did not take a definitive position on whether Jefferson had a liaison of nearly 40 years with Hemings, or whether Hemings bore him several children. Instead, in the scrupulously researched book, Professor Gordon-Reed brought her lawyerly instincts and a lifelong fascination with Jefferson to the question of how the issue had been presented by Jefferson's many distinguished biographers. In particular, it was the vehemence of their denials that such a relationship might have existed that piqued her interest. She felt that history should be able to record both Jefferson's enormous contributions, and the lives and voices of the blacks who were part of his life and that society.
Professor Gordon-Reed, who had sparked debate on the long glossed-over issue, got a measure of satisfaction a year after the publication of the hardcover edition of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. News published in 1998 described DNA tests showing a near-certain confirmation of a genetic link between Jefferson and Hemings' youngest child, Eston. Professor Gordon-Reed subsequently rewrote her introduction for the paperback edition to reflect this news.
In Professor Gordon-Reed's most recent book, Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History, she edits 12 original essays which illustrate how race often determined the outcome of trials, and how trials that confront issues of racism provide a unique lens on American cultural history.
Professor Gordon-Reed, who grew up in still-segregated east Texas, became interested in Jefferson in elementary school after reading a children's biography of him, narrated by a fictional slave boy. At 14, she joined the Book-of-the-Month Club (concealing her status as a minor) to receive Fawn Brodie's biography, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate Portrait. She continued her study of Jefferson's life at Dartmouth College, where she majored in History, graduating in 1981. She attended Harvard Law School, where she was a member of the Law Review.
Professor 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 lives in Manhattan with her husband, daughter, and son.
September 11, 2009