description Annette Gordon-Reed Overview
Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and legal scholar whose work examines Thomas Jefferson, slavery, and the Hemings family. Her book The Hemingses: An American Family, published in 2008, received the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History and reconstructed the family's experiences and relationship to Jefferson through documentary and historical evidence.
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What did Annette Gordon-Reed win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for?
She won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. The book reconstructs the multigenerational Hemings family and its relationship with Thomas Jefferson. [Pulitzer record](https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/annette-gordon-reed)
What was Gordon-Reed's earlier book about Sally Hemings?
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, published in 1997, challenged the way earlier historians dismissed or minimized the Jefferson-Hemings relationship. Her later Pulitzer-winning book placed that relationship within the wider history of the Hemings family.
How many children did Sally Hemings have with Thomas Jefferson according to Gordon-Reed's work?
Gordon-Reed's work discusses seven children attributed to Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. The book also emphasizes that the family story cannot be understood without examining the enslaved and free relatives around them.
Why is Annette Gordon-Reed described as a legal historian?
Her training in law shaped the way she evaluates testimony, evidence, conflicting accounts, and the assumptions built into historical arguments. She applies that method to slavery, Jefferson, and the documentary record at Monticello.
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