New York Times best-selling author Evan Thomas shares glimpses into his intimate and inspiring biography, First: Sandra Day O’Connor, on America’s first female Supreme Court justice drawing on exclusive interviews and first-time access to Justice O’Connor’s archives. Package A is $30 and includes 1 ticket and a copy of “First” and Package B is $45 and includes 2 tickets and a copy of “First”. To purchase, call 843-723-9912 or click here. This incredible event is generously sponsored by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
This incredible event is generously sponsored by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
She’s a hero for our time, and this is the biography for our time.Walter Isaacson
She was born in 1930 in El Paso and grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona. At a time when women were expected to be homemakers, she set her sights on Stanford University. When she graduated near the top of her law school class in 1952, no firm would even interview her. But Sandra Day O’Connors story is that of a woman who repeatedly shattered glass ceilings doing so with a blend of grace, wisdom, humor, understatement, and cowgirl toughness.
She became the first ever female majority leader of a state senate. As a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals, she stood up to corrupt lawyers and humanized the law. When she arrived at the United States Supreme Court, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, she began a quarter-century tenure on the Court, hearing cases that ultimately shaped American law. Diagnosed with cancer at fifty-eight, and caring for a husband with Alzheimers, O’Connor endured every difficulty with grit and poise.
Women and men who want to be leaders and be first in their own lives who want to learn when to walk away and when to stand their ground will be inspired by O’Connors example. This is a remarkably vivid and personal portrait of a woman who loved her family, who believed in serving her country, and who, when she became the most powerful woman in America, built a bridge forward for all women.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Evan Thomas is the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers John Paul Jones, Sea of Thunder, and Being Nixon. Thomas was a writer, correspondent, and editor for thirty-three years at Time and Newsweek, including ten years as Washington bureau chief at Newsweek, where, at the time of his retirement in 2010, he was editor at large. He wrote more than one hundred cover stories and in 1999 won a National Magazine Award. He wrote Newsweeks election specials in 1996, 2000, 2004 (winner for Newsweek of the National Magazine Award), and 2008. He appears on many TV and radio talk shows, including Meet the Press and Morning Joe. Thomas has taught writing and journalism at Harvard and Princeton, where, from 2007 to 2014, he was Ferris Professor of Journalism.
