Fawn Brodie (1915–1981)
Author of Thomas Jefferson : An Intimate History
About the Author
The late Fawn M. Brodie was professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of several other noted biographies, including The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton, also published in Norton paperback.
Works by Fawn Brodie
Associated Works
The City of the Saints: Among the Mormons and Across the Rocky Mountains to California (1862) — Editor, some editions — 89 copies
The Word from Weber County. A Centennial Anthology of our Best Writers (1996) — Contributor — 6 copies
The Skeleton in Grandpa's Barn: And Other Stories of Growing Up in Utah (2008) — Contributor — 1 copy
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought - Volume 14, Number 2 (Summer 1981) (1981) — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Brodie, Fawn
- Legal name
- Brodie, Fawn McKay
- Other names
- Brodie, Fawn M.
- Birthdate
- 1915-09-15
- Date of death
- 1981-01-10
- Burial location
- ashes scattered over Santa Monica Mountains
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Ogden, Utah, USA
- Place of death
- Santa Monica, California, USA
- Cause of death
- lung cancer
- Places of residence
- Ogden, Utah, USA
Huntsville, Utah, USA
Los Angeles, California, USA - Education
- Weber College
University of Utah (BA|1934)
University of Chicago (MA|1936) - Occupations
- historian
university professor
biographer - Relationships
- Brodie, Bernard (husband)
McKay, David O. (uncle) - Organizations
- University of California, Los Angeles
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (excommunicated 1946)
Utah State Historical Society (fellow) - Awards and honors
- Fellow of the Utah State Historical Society
- Short biography
- Fawn McKay grew up in a devout Mormon family in Huntsville, Utah. She earned a B.A. in English literature from the University of Utah and an M.A. from the University of Chicago. In 1936, she married scholar Bernard Brodie, who became a noted expert in Cold War military strategy. Both families opposed the marriage. Fawn Brodie worked for a while at the Harper Library at the University of Chicago, where she began doing the lengthy research for a biography of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, eventually published as No Man Knows My History (1944). The book received wide critical acclaim, but the Mormon Church strenuously objected to it and excommunicated Fawn Brodie as a heretic. She went on to write works on Thaddeus Stevens, Sir Richard Burton, and Thomas Jefferson. The latter was a bestseller and the first to publicly prove that Jefferson had fathered children with the slave Sally Hemings. Fawn Brodie was also one of the first female professors of history at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Statistics
- Works
- 9
- Also by
- 11
- Members
- 2,439
- Popularity
- #10,519
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
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- ISBNs
- 33
- Languages
- 3
- Favorited
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