Gordon-Reed, Annette
1958-present · Contribution: 1997-2009
Education
Became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for History, in 2009, for The Hemingses of Monticello, her groundbreaking multigenerational history of Sally Hemings's family that transformed mainstream scholarly understanding of Thomas Jefferson's decades-long relationship with Hemings, an enslaved woman he owned

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Quick facts
- Category
- Education
Impact on the world
Gordon-Reed overturned two centuries of Jefferson scholarship by taking enslaved people's testimony seriously, reshaping how historians weigh evidence and whose voices count.
Sources
- The Pulitzer Prizes
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