Woody Holton

Abner Linwood "Woody" Holton, III is an associate professor of history at the University of Richmond.

Life

He is a graduate of the University of Virginia and received his PhD from Duke University. He is the son of former Virginia Governor A. Linwood Holton Jr., the brother of former Virginia First Lady Anne Holton, and the brother-in-law of Anne's husband, U.S. Senator and former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine.

Holton spent the 2008-2009 academic year on sabbatical preparing this study of the life of First Lady Abigail Adams. The book focuses extensively on the role of creditors and bond speculators in the creation of the United States Constitution, by examining the financial savvy of one of America's earliest and most aggressive female investors.^[1]

Political activities

In 1990, Prof. Holton created Clean Up Congress (CUC), a political action committee described by Open Secrets as "Democrat/liberal" group. In 1994 CUC waged a campaign to defeat Oliver North's 1994 bid for Virginia's Senate seat (North lost by 3% of the vote).^[2][3][4][5]

In 1981-1983, during terms, he served as a legislative aide in the Virginia General Assembly, working for Hon. Robert T. Andrews (R-McLean). As an aide, characterized in the Washington Post as an energetic "young tiger," he helped Delegate Andrews to draft and pass Virginia's first child safety seat law, changes to the Alcohol Safety Action Program (ASAP) for post-conviction referral, and other legislation and acts benefiting the Commonwealth.

Awards

• 2007 National Book Award finalist, for Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution
• 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2010 Bancroft Prize, for Abigail Adams^[6]

Books

• Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia, University of North Carolina Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-8078-4784-8
• Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, Macmillan, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8090-8061-8
• Abigail Adams, Simon and Schuster, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4165-4680-1^[7]
• Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era: A Brief History with Documents, Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009, ISBN 978-0-312-41359-0^[8]

References