Elizabeth Brown Pryor (March 15, 1951 – April 13, 2015) was an American diplomat and historian.

Career

She was born Mary Elizabeth Brown in

Gary, Indiana Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city has been historically dominated by major industrial activity and is home to U.S. Steel's Gary Works, the largest steel mill complex in North America. Gary is located along the sou ...

. Her father worked for

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...

, and the family moved multiple times for his job. She finished her secondary school education in Summit, New Jersey and attended

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. Upon her graduation in 1973, Pryor began working for the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

. She also obtained a second bachelor's degree from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

and a masters in history from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. In 1983, Brown joined the Department of State. She formulated the policy, known as the Pryor Paper, that eventually led the United States to rejoin

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

in 2003. In 2008, Pryor was awarded the

Lincoln Prize The Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize, founded by the late Richard Gilder and Lewis Lehrman in partnership with Gabor Boritt, Director Emeritus of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College, is administered by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for Ameri ...

for ''Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee through his Private Letters.'' She shared the honor with James Oakes, who won for ''The Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of Antislavery Politics''. Pryor's book is notable for using hundreds of Lee's previously unpublished private letters to create a fresh biography of the

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

general. Pryor is also the author of the biography ''Clara Barton: Professional Angel'' about the founder of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton. She was married and divorced twice, first to Anthony Pryor, then to Frank Parker. Pryor was killed in a rear end vehicle accident caused by a speeding car driven by Robert Stevens Gentil in Richmond,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

on April 13, 2015. Gentil's long-term mental health issues led to episodes of manic delusions, including the belief on this occasion that his car was flying. She was survived by her mother, Mary Brown Hamingson, and two sisters.

References

External links

A Conversation with Elizabeth Brown Pryor
*http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/clara-bartons-enemy-depression/2012/04/04/gIQAdryXzS_story.html * * American women diplomats American diplomats Historians of the United States Lincoln Prize winners American women historians 21st-century American historians 21st-century American biographers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American historians 20th-century American biographers American women biographers 20th-century American women writers Alumni of the University of London University of Pennsylvania alumni Northwestern University alumni People from Gary, Indiana 1951 births 2015 deaths Road incident deaths in Virginia {{US-historian-stub