Author Description

About the Author Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Mary Beth Norton received her B.A. from the University of Michigan (1964) and her Ph.D. from Harvard University (1969). She is the Mary Donlon Alger Professor of American History at Cornell University. Her dissertation won the Allan Nevins Prize. She has written THE BRITISH-AMERICANS (1972), LIBERTY'S DAUGHTERS (1980, 1996), Founding MOTHERS & FATHERS (1996), which was one of three finalists for the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in History, and IN THE DEVIL'S SNARE (2002), which was one of five finalists for the 2003 L.A. Times Book Prize in History and which won the English-Speaking Union's Ambassador Book Award in American Studies for 2003. She has co-edited three volumes on American women's history. She was also general editor of the AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION'S GUIDE TO HISTORICAL LITERATURE (1995). Her articles have appeared in such journals as the AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY, and JOURNAL OF WOMEN'S HISTORY. Mary Beth has served as president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, as vice president for research of the American Historical Association, and as a presidential appointee to the National Council on the Humanities. She has appeared on Book TV, the History and Discovery Channels, PBS, and NBC as a commentator on Early American history, and she lectures frequently to high school teachers through the Teaching American History program. She has received four honorary degrees and in 1999 was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Starr Foundations, and the Henry E. Huntington Library. In 2005-2006, she was the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at the University of Cambridge and Newnham College.