Hagedorn, Ann

views updated

Hagedorn, Ann

(Ann Hagedorn Auerbach)

PERSONAL:

Born in Dayton, OH. Education: Denison University, B.A.; University of Michigan, M.L.S. (with highest honors); Columbia University, M.A. (with highest honors); Goethe Institute, German language proficiency degree; also attended Yale University. Hobbies and other interests: Playing the violin and concertina, bicycling, sailing, reading, and writing.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Ripley, OH; New York, NY.

CAREER:

Writer. San Jose Mercury News, San Jose, CA, staff writer, 1985-86; Wall Street Journal, New York, NY, staff writer, 1986-1993; New York Daily News, New York, NY, special projects editor and investigative reporter, 1993-95. Also worked as a research librarian, University of Kansas, and a member of library faculty, New York University. Guest lecturer and professor at Columbia University and Northwestern University; guest lecturer at Vassar College, Berea College, Denison University, Wilmington College, Ohio State University, Xavier University, and Antioch Writer's Workshop.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Associated Press award for business writing, for article in New York Daily News on George Steinbrenner; Ohioana Book Award citation winner in nonfiction category, and Most Notable Books in America citation, American Library Association, both 2004, both for Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad.

WRITINGS:

AS ANN HAGEDORN AUERBACH

Wild Ride: The Rise and Tragic Fall of Calumet Farm, Inc., America's Premier Racing Dynasty, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1994.

Ransom: The Untold Story of International Kidnapping, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1998.

OTHER

Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2002.

Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Former journalist Ann Hagedorn is both an author of nonfiction books and a guest lecturer in writing and journalism at universities across the United States. Her first book, Wild Ride: The Rise and Tragic Fall of Calumet Farm, Inc., America's Premier Racing Dynasty, traces the multigenerational story of one of horseracing's most successful companies, which eventually went bankrupt in the early 1990s amid charges of fraud and corruption. Hagedorn's sophomore title, Ransom: The Untold Story of International Kidnapping, is centered around the story of the 1995 kidnapping of several men—one of them American—in the Indian region of Kashmir. The book also includes numerous accounts from kidnapping victims, as well as commentary on kidnappers' motives and what might be done to stop them.

Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad is a factual account of the role that the town of Ripley, Ohio, played in helping both escaped and freed slaves continue their journey into Canada. One character in particular—the abolitionist Reverend John Rankin—receives particular attention for the sacrifices made and risks taken in protecting the lives of American slaves. Hagedorn places the town's efforts in context by sharing details about the greater abolitionist movement in the United States. Writing in the Journal of Southern History, Leonne M. Hudson wrote: "This superbly written volume is thoroughly documented with primary sources and contains several photographs." Hudson continued: "With a sense of freshness and passion, Hagedorn succeeds splendidly in recreating the historical legacy of the Underground Railroad." A Publishers Weekly reviewer pointed out that "Hagedorn's decision to relocate to Ripley during the book's completion no doubt inspired her immediate and vivid prose, bringing these historical figures to a wider audience." "Hagedorn's book could have offered more background on the slave empire and the workings of the Underground Rail-road beyond Ripley," remarked Time reviewer Richard Lacayo, "but the ground-level focus gives Hagedorn's story the flavor and fire of an era when even the newspapers had names like the Agitator and the Castigator."

In Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919, Hagedorn focuses on the year after the close of World War I, a time of great optimism in the United States. In reality, racism was rampant and prompted violence, paranoia was widespread, and women were still fighting for the right to vote. The book, wrote History News Network Web site reviewer Murray Polner, is "a dramatic and valuable reminder of a period that resembles our more recent time of troubles after WWII, during the Vietnam era, and in the proxy war in Central America when political and governmental demagogues hounded and persecuted critics and dissenters." A contributor to Kirkus Reviews found the Savage Peace "fluently written, constantly surprising—and timely, in a between-the-lines sort of way." Describing the book as a "vivid account of a nation in tumult and transition," a critic for Publishers Weekly noted: "The nexus of global and national upheaval is chillingly relevent."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Journal of Southern History, May, 2004, Leonne M. Hudson, review of Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad, p. 431.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2007, review of Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919, p. 111.

Publishers Weekly, January 6, 2003, review of Beyond the River, p. 50; January 15, 2007, review of Savage Peace, p. 40.

Time, February 17, 2003, Richard Lacayo, "Making Tracks to Freedom: A Chronicle of One Defiant Family Who Formed a Vital Link in the Pre-Civil War Underground Railroad," p. 70.