Chris Lehmann interviews the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian at Forum. Here is a taste: Chris Lehmann: In your recent book, On Juneteenth, you wrote very powerfully about the kind of stories that need to be told with regard to your experience growing...
Annette Gordon-Reed
“Slavery” or “involuntary relocation?”
Here is Brian Lopez at The Texas Tribune: A group of Texas educators have proposed to the Texas State Board of Education that slavery should be taught as “involuntary relocation” during second grade social studies instruction, but board members have...
Annette Gordon-Reed talks race and American history
Here is a taste of Chauncey DeVega’s interview with Gordon-Reed at Salon: Why are so many (white) people upset by basic facts about the color line and its centrality to American history? Guilt. That is why there are people who...
Can the “spirit of 1776 survive the history wars of 2021?”
America’s 250th anniversary is coming. It should be interesting. Here is Jennifer Schuessler at The New York Times: The story historians tell about the American Revolution has changed enormously since the Bicentennial. Uplifting biographies of the founding fathers may still...
Joe Biden meets with American historians at the White House
The court historians? Those in attendance included Jon Meacham, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Michael Eric Dyson, Joanne Freeman, Eddie Glaude Jr, Annette Gordon Reed, and Walter Isaacson. Mike Allen at Axios reports that everyone wore masks. The topics discussed...
A George Whitefield statue is coming down at the University of Pennsylvania
George Whitefield was arguably the most popular man in colonial America. His preaching was the catalyst for the colonial-wide evangelical revival that historians call the “First Great Awakening.” Recently, the University of Pennsylvania decided to remove a Whitefield statue on...
Wilfred McClay on Historical Monuments
Whether you agree or disagree with him, Wilfred McClay is always thoughtful. If I see his byline at First Things or another conservative outlet, I will always read the article. As one of America’s best conservative historians (not a historian...
Ken Burns on Monuments
The documentary filmmaker recently appeared on Chris Cuomo’s show on CNN. Watch: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOwrd2kRQcA&w=560&h=315] I tend to agree with Burns’s case-by-case approach. I am also with Annette Gordon-Reed on non-Confederate monuments....
Gordon-Reed: “There are far more dangerous threats to history” than the removal of monuments
What should we do with Confederate monuments? Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed offers her thoughts at The Harvard Gazette: Gordon-Reed on whether the removal of Confederate statues dishonors the memory of those who died fighting for the Confederacy: I would...
The 1619 Project: Debate Continues
When we last left the debate on the 1619 Project, Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz leveled more criticism of the project in a piece at The Atlantic. Social media historians (and some non-historians who are advancing informed and not-so-informed opinions)...
Annette Gordon-Reed Reviews Alan Taylor’s New Book on Jefferson and Education
When a Pultizer-Prize-winning American historian reviews a new book from another Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian it is worth a separate post here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. Taylor’s book is titled Thomas Jefferson’s Education. Here is a taste of Gordon-Reed’s review at The...
David Blight Wins the Pulitzer Prize for History
The Pulitzer Prize for History was just awarded to David Blight, author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. Blight’s book was chosen by a committee made up of historians Annette Gordon-Reed, Markus Rediker, and Tiya Miles. Learn more here....
It’s Official: Monticello Affirms Thomas Jefferson Fathered Children with Sally Hemings
It was announced on June 6, 2018. Here is the press release: The issue of Jefferson’s paternity has been the subject of controversy for at least two centuries, ranging from contemporary newspaper articles in 1802 (when Jefferson was President) to...
Annette Gordon Reed: Why Jefferson Matters in the Wake of Charlottesville
I have been trying to say something like this throughout the week, but I can’t say it as well or with the expertise and authority of Annette Gordon-Reed: Today, a time of intense focus on the personal and of misplaced...
FOUND: The Slave Quarters of Sally Hemings
She was mother to six of Thomas Jefferson’s children. She was also Thomas Jefferson’s slave. Archaeologists at Monticello have discovered the living quarters of Sally Hemings. Here is a taste of a report from NBC News: CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Archaeologists...
Are the Founding Fathers Back In Vogue?
Earlier today we posted a video of a session on race and monuments from the Aspen Ideas Festival. Here is another video from the Festival that will be of interest to readers of The Way of Improvement Leads Home. The...
Annette Gordon-Reed on Why Monuments to Thomas Jefferson are Not in Jeopardy
Earlier this Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Jefferson scholar Annette Gordon-Reed was part of a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival on race, monuments, and the Civil War. She was joined by poet Elizabeth Alexander and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu....
How Does Annette Gordon-Reed Write?
She is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family and she was a guest on episode of eight of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. And have I mentioned that she gave the 2012 American...
Annette Gordon-Reed on Thomas Jefferson: “I now see him with a bit more humility, recognizing how hard it is to do anything, how hard it is to accomplish things”
The Harvard Gazette is running a long interview with Pulitzer Prize winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed. Over the course of the interview she talks about her childhood, her escape from the ashes of the World Trade Center on 9-11, and...
Plenary Sessions Announced for the 2017 Conference of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History in Dallas
The folks at the Society for U.S. Intellectual History have been putting together some great annual conferences of late. The 2017 meeting in Dallas is shaping up to be a real intellectual history-fest. I was recently asked to participate in...