Gordon-Reed, who was traveling in Australia at the time of the announcement, said in an interview with The Dartmouth that she was shocked to learn that she had won.
"It was a total surprise," Gordon-Reed said. "I didn't even know I was a finalist. I knew that it was a possibility because anything is possible, but I didn't know I was being considered."
The Pulitzer Prize-winning book examines the story of the Hemings and Jefferson families from a different angle than previous scholarly works, according to Dartmouth history professor Marlene Heck.
"[Gordon-Reed] has taken a different approach, but a complimentary one," Heck, who is also an art history professor, said. "She is really interested in the Hemings family experience. For Jefferson scholars, the Hemingses are always there, but we never quite focus on them, but she has foregrounded the Hemings family and their lives."
Heck emphasized that the title of the book uses the phrase "An American Family" to describe the Hemingses in order to portray them as a typical post-revolutionary American family.
"I have been to Monticello before, but [Gordon-Reed] made me see Monticello through the eyes of the Hemings family," Heck said. "I was constantly having these 'a-ha' moments."
Heck said the new perspective offered by Gordon-Reed's book will forever change the way she teaches her classes about Monticello and Virginia in post-revolutionary America.
Gordon-Reed, a history major at Dartmouth, said she first became interested in history in elementary school, where she was the first black student in her previously all-white school district in Conroe, Texas.
"I integrated our school district," Gordon-Reed said. "That experience certainly sparked my interest in history because I began to think about why it was such a big deal, why it was necessary in the court system and considered all of the people involved."
Gordon-Reed said she read biographies of Jefferson during her elementary school years.
"My interest in Jefferson came from wanting to study someone who could write the Declaration of Independence and also be a slaveholder," Gordon-Reed said.
She explained that she became curious about the full history of the Hemings family while conducting research for her 1997 book, "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy."
"When I was writing my first book, I discovered the way in which historians privileged white people's stories over those of black people," Gordon-Reed said. "You would think the objects of slavery would be more interesting."
Gordon-Reed said one of her more fascinating experiences was discovering a record of Sally Hemings' father in England while conducting research for her Pulitzer Prize-winning book.
She said she is grateful to have received hundreds of messages after winning the prize congratulating her for her success.
"I was surprised that people were paying attention," Gordon-Reed said. "I just started getting congratulations from some of my classmates from Dartmouth and high school. That's been the most amazing thing."
For her next book, Gordon-Reed plans to continue following the Hemings family saga into the 19th century. She then hopes to write a biography of Thomas Jefferson.
"The Hemingses of Monticello" also received the National Book Award in November and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, which recognizes books that have made important contributions to the understanding of race and culture.
