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Book Maven Interview: Annette Gordon-Reed

September 26, 2008 Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with Annette Gordon-Reed, who is on tour for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. This meticulously researched history of the black, slave Hemings family and how it intertwined with the white, landowning Jefferson family is almost hypnotic in its fisheye-lens approach: You "see" closeup details about the 18th and 19th century lives described at the same time you "see" what was happening around each individual life described..

Gordon-Reed, who is simultaneously a history professor at Rutgers and a law professor at NYU, has the academic perspective necessary to provide this approach -- but she also has her own passionate perspective. Telling the story of "Tom" Jefferson and "Sally" Hemings (as she calls them) is something she's been working on since her 1997 Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, a book in which she argued for further investigation into an unproven DNA connection. 

That book was also criticized for its sometimes dry and legalistic prose; Gordon-Reed has definitely remedied that in her new book. While The Hemingses of Monticello sometimes slows down, it's anything but dry; the author's "obsession" with her story and her determination to paint pictures of individuals rather than archetypes or stereotypes keeps this historical narrative lively and meaningful. 

I spoke with Annette Gordon-Reed by phone at her hotel in Philadelphia.

Bethanne Patrick: Tell me about your title, which I believe was quite deliberately chosen.

Annette Gordon-Reed:  I really wanted to highlight, and I want people to think about, Monticello being the home of the enslaved people who lived there,too. The Hemings family was large and close and accomplished, and they spent more time at Monticello than Jefferson did. Just think of Betty Brown: she came to that mountain with Thomas and Martha Jefferson in 1772 and she was one of the last to leave there, in the 1830s. It was her home as much as it was theirs.

BP: One of the most intriguing moments in your story is when siblings James and Sally Hemings return to Virginia with Thomas Jefferson. Why didn't they stay in France and live as free people?

AG: I get asked about that a lot, and we do know that Sally, at least, returned because Tom convinced her that if she did, their children would all live free lives in Virginia. But what really intrigues me is when people assume that they couldn't have stayed in France, that they couldn't have made it on their own. Their were plenty of black slaves who took their freedom in Europe, especially France, and had productive lives as milliners, chefs, and more -- we know this from registries. Why do we assume black people couldn't do things when given the opportunity?

BP: There's a connection, I think, between believing black slaves couldn't do things and believing that some parts of life should remain "hidden" and secondary -- anything to do with women, for example. Of course, Sally Hemings was both black and a woman. What do you think about that?

AG: Oh yeah, things of the home... The home is considered a lesser place when we discuss the lives of great men, and slaves themselves were part of the home. But domestic stuff, women and slaves and children, that is all stuff that mattered and matters a great deal, and those are things we don't see enough of in history books, because they are considered lesser. I am really interested in the story about women who put up with what men do -- men set a world that the women have to adjust to. How do women, slave or free, maneuver in that world? This is a big part of my book, and not just regarding Sally. I'm fascinated by Elizabeth, the matriarch of the Hemings family.

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Posted by Bethanne Patrick on September 26, 2008 | Comments (3)