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- For the basketball player, see Joe Ellis
Joseph John Ellis (born 1943) is a Professor of
History at Mount Holyoke College who has
written influential and award-winning histories on the founding
generation of American presidents. His book Founding Brothers:
The Revolutionary Generation (2000) received the Pulitzer Prize for History
in 2001.
Background and teaching
He received his B.A. from the College of
William and Mary, where he was initiated into Theta Delta
Chi. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University
in 1969. He served in the United States Army and also taught
at West Point until 1972.
That year Ellis joined the faculty at Mount Holyoke College. He
is the former dean of faculty at Mount Holyoke and also served as
Acting President for part of 1984 while President Elizabeth Topham Kennan was on
leave.
Jefferson
and Hemings
Main article: American
Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
Ellis in his book American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas
Jefferson suggested that evidence for an affair between Thomas
Jefferson and Sally Hemings was "inconclusive".[1]
Specifically, Ellis states in the appendix to American
Sphinx,
Unless the trustees of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation
decide to exhume the remains and do DNA testing on Jefferson as
well as some of his alleged progeny, it leaves the matter a mystery
about which advocates on either side can freely speculate... This
means that for those who demand an answer the only recourse is
plausible conjecture, prefaced as it must be with profuse
statements about the flimsy and wholly circumstantial character of
the evidence. In that spirit, which we might call the spirit of
responsible speculation, after five years mulling over the huge
cache of evidence that does exist on the thought and character of
the historical Jefferson, I have concluded that the likelihood of a
liaison with Sally Hemings is remote.[2]
On November 5, 1998, Dr. Eugene Foster published an article,
"Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child", in the weekly journal
Nature. Foster reported that DNA
testing proved that a male from the Thomas Jefferson line was the
father of Sally Hemings's son Eston. Given that, he believed that
Thomas Jefferson was the father of Eston and probably Hemings'
other children.[3]
On November 2, 1998, The
NewsHour with Jim Lehrer featured this topic and stated,
"According to an article in an upcoming issue of the journal
Nature, DNA analysis shows that Jefferson almost certainly
fathered at least one of Sally Hemings' children, her last son,
Eston."[4] Ellis,
who was interviewed during this broadcast, stated that he had
revised his opinion due to this new evidence:
- It's not so much a change of heart, but this is really new
evidence. And it—prior to this evidence, I think it was a very
difficult case to know and circumstantial on both sides, and, in
part, because I got it wrong, I think I want to step forward and
say this new evidence constitutes, well, evidence beyond any
reasonable doubt that Jefferson had a longstanding sexual
relationship with Sally Hemings.[5]
Vietnam
War
Ellis became the subject of controversy when the Boston Globe published an article on
June 18, 2001, revealing that he had lied about fighting in the Vietnam War (he served
in uniform in America but did not go to Vietnam as he had claimed
to students and to the media).[6] Ellis
issued a public apology in August.[7] Mount
Holyoke suspended him from his endowed chair until further review,
as well as from teaching during the 2001-2002 academic year.[8] In May
2005, Mount Holyoke restored his chair.[9]
Criticism of George W.
Bush
Ellis is quoted as saying "I think President Bush might very
well be the worst president in U.S. history".[10][11] He
further stated that President Bush has very few achievements on the
positive side.[10]
Ellis was also critical of the tone set by the Bush administration
in its reaction to the September 11 attacks. [12]
Awards
Publications
Books
- American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding
of the Republic, 2007.[14]
- His Excellency: George Washington, 2004.
- After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American
Culture, 2002.
- Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation,
2000.
- What Did the Declaration Declare? (Historians at
Work), 1999.
- American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson,
1996.
- Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John
Adams, 1993.
- School for Soldiers: West Point and the Profession of
Arms, 1974.
- The New England Mind in Transition: Samuel Johnson of
Connecticut, 1696–1772, 1973.
Editorials
Notes
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links
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