Fawn M. Brodie facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Fawn M. Brodie
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Brodie in 1966
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| Born | Fawn McKay September 15, 1915 Ogden, Utah, U.S. |
| Died | January 10, 1981 (aged 65) Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Biographer and history professor |
| Alma mater |
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| Subject | Psychobiography |
| Notable works |
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| Spouse |
Bernard Brodie
(m. 1936; died 1978) |
| Children | 3 |
| Parent | Thomas E. McKay |
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Fawn McKay Brodie (born September 15, 1915 – died January 10, 1981) was an American writer and history professor. She was one of the first female professors of history at UCLA. Brodie is famous for her books that explored the lives of important historical figures.
Her most well-known works include Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (1974) and No Man Knows My History (1945). The book about Thomas Jefferson used a method called psychobiography. This means she tried to understand historical figures by looking at their thoughts and feelings, similar to how psychology works.
Fawn McKay grew up in Utah in a family that was part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She later moved away from her religious beliefs while studying at the University of Chicago. There, she married Bernard Brodie, who became an expert in national defense. They had three children. Fawn Brodie became a tenured professor at UCLA, meaning she had a permanent teaching position. She wrote five biographies, using ideas from psychology in four of them.
In her 1945 book, Brodie described Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, as a very clever person who made things up. Some people praised her book as well-written and scholarly. Others said it presented guesses as facts. Her best-selling book about Thomas Jefferson, published in 1974, was the first modern book to look closely at whether Jefferson had a relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, and had children with her. Brodie concluded that he did. Later, a DNA test in 1998 and many scholars agreed with her findings.
Contents
Early Life and Family Background
Fawn McKay was the second of five children born to Thomas E. McKay and Fawn Brimhall. She was born in Ogden, Utah, and grew up in Huntsville. Her parents came from families who were important in the early days of the Mormon church. Her grandfather, George H. Brimhall, was the president of Brigham Young University. Her father, Thomas Evans McKay, held important positions in the church. Fawn Brodie's uncle, David O. McKay, later became the ninth president of the LDS Church.
Even though her family was well-known in the church, they were not rich. Fawn was often embarrassed that their house did not have indoor plumbing.
Fawn was very smart from a young age. At three, she could remember and say long poems. When she was six, she started school and was so advanced that she went straight to the fourth grade. At ten, she had a poem published in a church magazine for young people. When she was fourteen, she was the second-best student in her high school class.
Fawn grew up in a very religious home with strict rules. However, her mother secretly had doubts about the church's teachings. Brodie said that in the late 1930s, her mother became a "thoroughgoing heretic" (someone who strongly disagrees with accepted beliefs) while traveling with her father in Europe.
Education and Marriage
From 1930 to 1932, Brodie attended Weber College. This was a two-year college owned by the LDS Church at the time. She became a skilled public speaker and took part in college debates. In 1934, she earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from the University of Utah. It was there that she started to question some core Mormon beliefs. After graduating at age nineteen, she returned to teach English at Weber College.
In high school, Brodie had dated a classmate named Dilworth Jensen. They wrote to each other while he was away on a church mission in Europe. Friends thought they would marry. However, Fawn's sister had recently married Jensen's brother, whom the McKays did not like. Fawn's parents encouraged her to attend the University of Chicago instead of marrying. Fawn also had doubts about marrying Jensen.
At the University of Chicago, where she earned a master's degree in 1936, she completely lost her religious faith. She later said it felt like a great freedom. She knew she could not go back to her old life. She continued to write to Jensen until just before she married Bernard Brodie on her graduation day, August 28, 1936.
Bernard Brodie was from Chicago and was the son of Latvian Jewish immigrants. He was also not close to his family or their religion. He was a smart graduate student in international relations. He later became a famous expert in military strategy during the Cold War. Fawn's parents were very upset about her marriage. Her uncle, David O. McKay, even went to Chicago to warn her. Fawn held the wedding in a church chapel for her mother's sake, but only her mother attended from her family.
Writing No Man Knows My History
Starting the Book
Fawn Brodie found a temporary job at the Harper Library at the University of Chicago. She began researching the history of the Book of Mormon. By 1939, she told her uncle, Dean R. Brimhall, that she wanted to write a scholarly book about Joseph Smith. Her progress was slow because she had her first child and moved three times for her husband's work. In 1943, Brodie felt confident enough to enter her 300-page draft into a writing competition. She won the Alfred A. Knopf literary fellowship.
Brodie continued her research at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. She also visited the headquarters of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Missouri. She even went back to Utah to research in the LDS Church Archives. She got access to some secret materials by saying she was "Brother McKay's daughter." This made her feel guilty. Her search for rare documents caught the attention of her uncle, David O. McKay. After a difficult meeting with him, Brodie promised not to look at church archives again.
Other scholars of Mormonism, especially Dale L. Morgan, helped Brodie with her research. Morgan became a lifelong friend and mentor. Brodie finished her book about Joseph Smith in 1944. It was published in 1945 by Alfred A. Knopf when she was thirty years old.
What the Book Was About
The book's title, No Man Knows My History, comes from something Joseph Smith said before he died in 1844. Brodie described the young Joseph Smith as a friendly, easygoing person who was not very successful at finding treasure. She suggested that he came up with the idea of golden plates and then a religious story, the Book of Mormon. She believed he based some of it on an earlier book called View of the Hebrews. Brodie thought that at first, Smith was pretending to be a prophet. But over time, she believed he started to convince himself that he really was a prophet, even though he never forgot that he had made up the Book of Mormon.
How People Reacted
People who were not Mormon often praised Brodie's research and writing style. Newsweek called her book "a definitive biography." Time praised her "skill and scholarship." However, not all reviews were positive. The writer Vardis Fisher said she presented guesses as facts. Bernard DeVoto gave a mixed review but called it "the best book about the Mormons so far published." DeVoto thought Joseph Smith might have been "paranoid" and that Brodie had not explained his behavior enough psychologically. Brodie later agreed that a deeper look into Smith's mind was needed.
The LDS Church's Response
Even though No Man Knows My History questioned many basic Mormon beliefs about Joseph Smith, the LDS Church was slow to criticize it at first. In 1946, a church magazine said that many of the book's sources were "doubtful." The "Church News" section of the Deseret News praised the book's "fine literary style" but called it "a mix of all anti-Mormon books." Hugh Nibley, a BYU professor and church historian, wrote a booklet called "No, Ma'am, That's Not History" to challenge Brodie. He said she only used sources that supported her ideas and ignored others. Brodie called the Deseret News critique "Mormon propaganda" and Nibley's booklet "flippant and shallow."
In May 1946, the LDS Church removed Brodie from its membership (excommunicated her). She never tried to rejoin. Brodie once wrote that her disappointment with Mormonism was painful because of how it affected her family. But she also found it to be a "liberating experience." Before her book was published, Brodie tried to comfort her parents. She told them they had taught her to value truth, and that even if they ended up on different paths, it was not a reflection on them. Brodie's mother and three sisters liked the book, but her father refused to read it.
Writing About Other Historical Figures
Fawn Brodie enjoyed being a wife and mother. She found raising children "enormously fulfilling." She and Bernard eventually had two boys and a girl. Still, Brodie wanted to keep writing. After looking into other ideas, she decided to write about Thaddeus Stevens. He was a Republican member of the House of Representatives during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction era.
Brodie felt that earlier historians had unfairly criticized Stevens. She liked the idea of improving someone's reputation instead of tearing it down, as she had done with Joseph Smith. Stevens was a supporter of black people, which was an important topic during the Civil Rights Movement. Brodie also wondered how Stevens's club foot might have affected him psychologically.
Brodie became interested in using ideas from professional psychoanalysis to study historical people. This was a popular idea in the mid-1900s. She met many psychoanalysts who helped her understand Thaddeus Stevens. Both Fawn and Bernard Brodie also went to psychoanalysis themselves. The book about Stevens took almost ten years to finish.
Reviews of Thaddeus Stevens
When Brodie published the Stevens book in 1959, critics almost all praised it. Important historians of the Civil War era, like David Herbert Donald, praised the book. Donald called Brodie's psychological analysis of Stevens "a tour de force." However, Thaddeus Stevens did not sell well. It sold fewer than 1,500 copies and went out of print in less than a year.
More Writing and Teaching
In 1960, the Brodies spent a year in France. Fawn spent a lot of time researching and writing From Crossbow to H-Bomb. This was a book she co-wrote with her husband, meant for college students. It discussed how science influenced military technology. Bernard Brodie signed the contract, but Fawn did most of the research and writing.
The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton
When the family returned to California, a publisher asked Brodie to edit and write a new introduction for Sir Richard Francis Burton's memoir. Brodie quickly became fascinated by Burton, describing him as "fascinating beyond belief." She soon planned a full book about him. Like Brodie, Burton was an agnostic (someone who doubts religious claims) but was very interested in religion. Brodie talked with psychoanalysts and used her own thoughts to explore Burton's mind.
The book, The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton, was published in May 1967. It was chosen by two major book clubs. Reviews were generally positive. The New York Times Book Review called it an "excellent biography of a bizarre man."
Becoming a Professor at UCLA
Because she had published three praised books, Brodie was able to become a part-time lecturer in history at the University of California, Los Angeles. She did not have a Ph.D. (her degrees were in English). As a woman, Brodie faced some challenges from the mostly male history department. But her focus on psychohistory, a new field, helped her get hired and later become a full professor. Brodie taught large lectures on American history and smaller classes on American political figures.
Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History
Thomas Jefferson was a good choice for Brodie's fourth book. She taught a course on the United States from 1800 to 1830. Brodie was also interested in Mormon studies, and several publishers asked her to write a book about Brigham Young. However, she decided to write about Thomas Jefferson instead.
By May 1968, Brodie was committed to writing the Jefferson book. She knew she could not write a complete history of his life. So, she decided to focus on Jefferson's "private man." She built on recent articles about the idea that Jefferson had a relationship with Sally Hemings, a slave who was said to be his late wife's half-sister. This topic was important at a time when there was growing interest in race, sex, and the honesty of presidents.
Brodie believed that Jefferson's unclear feelings about slavery could be explained by his personal life. If he had a 38-year relationship with a slave, he could not free his slaves. This was because Virginia law would force freed slaves to leave the state unless the government gave special permission. He could only continue his relationship with Hemings if his slaves remained slaves. Many earlier historians had ignored evidence about this relationship.
Brodie used information from other historians to compare Jefferson's time at Monticello with the times Sally Hemings' children were conceived. She found that Hemings never became pregnant when Jefferson was away from Monticello, even though he was often gone for months.
Reviews and Success
By 1971, Brodie had a $15,000 advance from her publisher. She presented her ideas at a meeting of historians. One Jefferson expert strongly criticized her paper. She also wrote an article for American Heritage magazine about her work, called "The Great Jefferson Taboo." In it, she concluded that the Jefferson–Hemings relationship happened. The magazine even included all her notes to show her sources.
Brodie and her publisher knew the book would be controversial. Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History was published in February 1974. It was a main selection for the Book-of-the-Month Club. Brodie was interviewed on NBC's Today Show. The book quickly became a popular topic among social and literary groups. It was an immediate success, staying on the New York Times bestseller list for thirteen weeks. Jefferson sold 80,000 copies in hardcover and 270,000 copies in paperback. Brodie earned $350,000 in royalties, which would be over a million dollars today.
Literary reviews were generally positive. However, historians often criticized Brodie's guesses. Like many writers about Jefferson, Brodie grew to like him a lot. She even said that in her dreams, she and Jefferson became "man and wife."
After her book was published, Brodie was contacted by some descendants of Eston Hemings (Sally Hemings' son). They recognized his name from her book. These descendants had married white people and appeared white. They found out that their fathers had decided in the 1940s to tell their children they were descended from Jefferson's uncle. This was to protect them from racism related to being descendants of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. Brodie wrote another article in 1976 about these "unknown grandchildren."
1998 DNA Study and New Agreement
In 1997, Annette Gordon-Reed published a book that looked at how historians had studied the Jefferson-Hemings story. She pointed out that historians had been biased and overlooked evidence. She also noted that Jefferson was at Monticello when each of Sally Hemings' children would have been conceived.
To try to solve the debate, a Y-DNA study was done in 1998. This study looked at the DNA of male descendants from Jefferson's family line, Eston Hemings, and others. The study found that the Y-DNA of Eston Hemings' descendant matched the rare DNA type of the male Jefferson line. It also showed no match between the Carr family line and the Hemings descendant.
In January 2000, a committee for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello, concluded that it was very likely Jefferson was the father of Eston Hemings and probably all of Sally Hemings' children. Since then, the Foundation has changed its exhibits and tours to show Jefferson's fatherhood of all Hemings' children. Most scholars now agree with this conclusion.
Richard Nixon: The Shaping of His Character
Brodie thought about different people to write about next. Brigham Young was an option, but she did not want to go back to "old ground." Richard Nixon had resigned as president shortly after she finished her Jefferson book. Brodie, a liberal Democrat, found Nixon strangely fascinating. She called him "a rattlesnake" and a "shabby, pathetic felon." She thought Nixon was a faker, like Joseph Smith, but not as charming.
Her interest in Nixon also had a personal side. One of her sons almost got drafted into the army in 1969, shortly after Nixon promised to end the Vietnam War. Also, when Nixon tried to get information to discredit Daniel Ellsberg, his team broke into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Ellsberg was a close friend of Bernard Brodie. This psychiatrist was also Fawn Brodie's long-time therapist. Brodie felt that Nixon had attacked her privacy.
Even though her husband and publisher were not excited about her choice, Brodie started working on the Nixon project. She left her professorship at UCLA in 1977 to focus on research. For the first time, she used oral history collections, interviewing 150 people. She tried to interview Henry Kissinger and Nixon, but they did not reply.
Illness and Completion
In November 1977, Bernard Brodie was diagnosed with serious cancer. Fawn cared for him until he died a year later. After his death, she struggled with sadness that she never truly overcame.
While hiking in 1980, Brodie became very tired. She was soon diagnosed with lung cancer that had spread, even though she had never smoked. Between chemotherapy treatments, she pushed to finish the Nixon book. Her three children and a daughter-in-law helped her. Knowing she could not write a full biography, Brodie ended the book with Nixon's life before he became president.
Reviews of Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon: The Shaping of His Character was published in late 1981. It received less enthusiastic reviews than her earlier books. One reviewer questioned her psychological approach and her reasons for writing the book. Sales were disappointing, partly because of the reviews and because many other books by Nixon's associates had recently come out. Perhaps Brodie's book was most important for inspiring Oliver Stone's 1995 movie Nixon.
Death
Brodie died nine months before her book Richard Nixon: The Shaping of His Character was published. As she neared death, the cancer spread to her brain and bones, causing intense pain. During this time, her brother Thomas, who was still a practicing Latter-day Saint, visited her in the hospital. Brodie asked him to "give me a blessing." She had been distant from her brother and the church for a long time. A few days later, Brodie released a note saying that her request for a priesthood blessing should not be misunderstood as a wish to return to the church. This was her last signed statement. As she wished, her friends spread her ashes over the Santa Monica Mountains. She loved these mountains and had helped protect them from building development.
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Brodie in 1966
