Cordery, Stacy A.

PERSONAL:

Education: University of Texas at Austin, B.A., 1983, M.A., 1986, Ph.D., 1992.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Monmouth College, Department of History, Monmouth, IL 61462-2433. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Academic and historian. Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL, began teaching in 1994, became professor of history, 2006—, then department chair. Bess Heflin fellow, University of Texas, 1986; lecturer, University of Arkansas, 1988-90; Dora Bonham fellow, University of Texas, 1989; assistant instructor, University of Texas at Austin, 1990-91; visiting assistant professor, East Carolina University, 1992-94; curator for the Monmouth College Archives; bibliographer for the National First Ladies' Library.

MEMBER:

Theodore Roosevelt Association (advisory board), Women's and Gender Historians of the Midwest (secretary, 2000—), American Historical Association, Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Phi Alpha Theta.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Professor of the Year award, Monmouth College, 1997, 1998; Senior Professor of the Year award, Monmouth College, 2003; Hatch Teaching Excellence Award, 2007.

WRITINGS:

Theodore Roosevelt: In the Vanguard of the Modern, Wadsworth Press (Claremont, CA), 2003.

Historic Photographs of Theodore Roosevelt, Turner (Nashville, TN), 2007.

Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker, Viking (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals and journals, including Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, Indiana Magazine of History, Journal of Policy History, H-Women, Women Historians of the Midwest, Electronic Journal of Australian and New Zealand History, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, North Carolina Historical Review, and Presidential Studies Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stacy A. Cordery is an academic and historian. She completed her higher education studies exclusively at the University of Texas at Austin. She earned her first degree, a bachelor of arts, in 1983 and followed this in 1986 with a master of arts degree. As a doctoral student, Cordery served as a Bess Heflin fellow at the University of Texas in 1986 and a Dora Bonham fellow in 1989. From 1988 to 1990 she worked as a lecturer at the University of Arkansas. From 1990 to 1991 she worked as an assistant instructor at the University of Texas at Austin. She completed her Ph.D. in 1992.

After completing her studies, Cordery became a visiting assistant professor at East Carolina University, serving there until 1994. At that time she began working at Monmouth College, in Illinois, where in 2006 she became a full professor of history. While at Monmouth College, she served as the chair of the history department, curator for the Monmouth College Archives, and bibliographer for the National First Ladies' Library. Her teaching has been rewarded a number of times. Cordery won Monmouth College's Professor of the Year award in 1997 and 1998 and in 2003 was given the Senior Professor of the Year award.

Cordery is on the advisory board for the Theodore Roosevelt Association, has been the secretary of the Women's and Gender Historians of the Midwest since 2000, and is a member of the American Historical Association and the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As a writer, she has contributed articles and book reviews to a number of periodicals and academic journals, including the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, Indiana Magazine of History, Journal of Policy History, H-Women, Women Historians of the Midwest, Electronic Journal of Australian and New Zealand History, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, North Carolina Historical Review, and the Presidential Studies Quarterly. Her research interests include American history, biographies, the Roosevelt family dynasty, Mabel Boardman, Juliette Gordon Low, and Helen Taft.

Cordery published her first book, Theodore Roosevelt: In the Vanguard of the Modern, in 2003. In 2007 Cordery published Historic Photographs of Theodore Roosevelt.

She also published Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker in 2007. Cordery uses the personal letters and writings of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt's eldest daughter, to construct her biography. Described as a shrewd and clever player in Washington politics, Longworth lived a life in the center of national politics, despite a troubled childhood and a history of early deaths in her family.

Janet Maslin, writing in the New York Times Book Review, noted that "by far the most interesting part of this detail-crammed, occasionally arid portrait is its account of the mature, married Alice, casting about for a durable adult persona." Booklist contributor Brad Hooper described the account as an "absorbing, magnificently complete biography," adding that it is "the first to be based on Alice's own papers." A contributor to Publishers Weekly wrote that with this biography, the author "pens an authoritative, intriguing portrait of a first daughter who broke the mold." A contributor to Kirkus Reviews remarked that Cordery uses "a plethora of detail to get" a view of Alice's true self. The same contributor described the biography as "a rigorous portrait of a woman of strong opinions who surely should have run for office herself," adding that it "promises to revive the old dame's reputation."

Writing in the Christian Science Monitor, Randy Dotinga found that "despite Cordery's efforts, it's a bit of a stretch to call Longworth a ‘power broker.’ She was more observer than major player, and her tart tongue and ‘supreme indifference to public opinion,’ as one acquaintance put it, would have snuffed any bid for public office." Dotinga mentioned that "Cordery has created a voluminous work, full of detail and sharp-minded analysis. But the book lacks Longworth's wit and verve," and appended that the author took Longworth "more seriously than she took herself." Linda V. Carlisle, reviewing the book in Library Journal, "highly recommended" the book, owing to its "exhaustive research." Carlisle concluded that Cordery's "work should quickly take its place as the most complete biography."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Spectator, March 1, 2008, Florence King, review of Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker, p. 71.

Booklist, July 1, 2007, Brad Hooper, review of Alice, p. 22.

Christian Science Monitor, October 16, 2007, Randy Dotinga, review of Alice, p. 17.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2007, review of Alice.

Library Journal, October 1, 2007, Linda V. Carlisle, review of Alice, p. 80.

New York Times Book Review, November 1, 2007, Janet Maslin, review of Alice; November 18, 2007, Thomas Mallon, review of Alice, p. 14.

Publishers Weekly, June 18, 2007, review of Alice, p. 43.

ONLINE

H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online,http://www.h-net.org/ (January 1, 2005), April R. Summitt, review of Theodore Roosevelt: In the Vanguard of the Modern.

Monmouth College Web site,http://www.monm.edu/ (June 7, 2008), author profile.