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Michael J. Astrue

American writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ6831363 ↗
Source-derived summary

Michael James Astrue (born October 1, 1956) is an American lawyer and, under the pen name A. M. Juster, a poet and critic. He served as the 15th Commissioner of the Social Security Administration from 2007 to 2013. Astrue was Poetry Editor of First Things from 2018 to 2020, and was Poetry Editor of Plough Quarterly from 2020 to 2024.

Education

He graduated magna cum laude from Roxbury Latin School in 1974. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Yale University in 1978 with honors in Philosophy and English, where he was also President of the Yale Political Union and won the Pierson Scholarship Award. He was told by an administrator that the politics of a "Gerald Ford Republican" were an obstacle to receiving academic fellowships. He received his Juris Doctor cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1983. In 2013 he received an honorary doctor of laws from the New England School of Law and an honorary doctor of humane letters from Southern Vermont College.

Career

After graduating from Yale, he worked briefly as a staff assistant for Senator Richard Schweiker (R-PA) and as a demonstration program evaluator for two non-profit organizations. He also took a two-month leave of absence to be co-coordinator of the 1980 John B. Anderson primary campaign in Connecticut, but did not support Anderson's run as an independent.

Editorial summary

“Michael J. Astrue” enters the record as american writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Michael, Astrue and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1956, 2007, 2013, 2018—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1956-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Michael, Astrue and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Michael J. Astrue” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Michael, Astrue and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6831363. VIAF identifies the subject as 33617180. The Library of Congress control number is n90636693. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 2007, 2013 and 2018.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Michael J. Astrue”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Michael J. Astrue primary sources, Michael J. Astrue archive and Michael research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Michael J. Astrue”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Michael J. Astrue” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.