Product Description

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Cokie Roberts comes New York Times bestseller Founding Mothers, an intimate and illuminating look at the fervently patriotic and passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families–and their country–proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it.

While much has been written about the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, battled the British, and framed the Constitution, the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters they left behind have been little noticed by history. #1 New York Times bestselling author Cokie Roberts brings us women who fought the Revolution as valiantly as the men, often defending their very doorsteps. Drawing upon personal correspondence, private journals, and even favoured recipes, Roberts reveals the often surprising stories of these fascinating women, bringing to life the everyday trials and extraordinary triumphs of individuals like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Read Franklin, Eliza Pinckney, Catherine Littlefield Green, Esther DeBerdt Reed and Martha Washington–proving that without our exemplary women, the new country might have never survived.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6628 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-15
• Released on: 2005-02-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From Publishers Weekly
ABC News political commentator and NPR news analyst Roberts didn't intend this as a general history of women's lives in early America-she just wanted to collect some great "stories of the women who influenced the Founding Fathers." For while we know the names of at least some of these women (Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Eliza Pinckney), we know little about their roles in the Revolutionary War, the writing of the Constitution, or the politics of our early republic. In rough chronological order, Roberts introduces a variety of women, mostly wives, sisters or mothers of key men, exploring how they used their wit, wealth or connections to influence the men who made policy. As high-profile players married into each other's families, as wives died in childbirth and husbands remarried, it seems as if early America-or at least its upper crust-was indeed a very small world. Roberts's style is delightfully intimate and confiding: on the debate over Mrs. Benedict Arnold's infamy, she proclaims, "Peggy was in it from the beginning." Roberts also has an ear for juicy quotes; she recounts Aaron Burr's mother, Esther, bemoaning that when talking to a man with "mean thoughts of women," her tongue "hangs pretty loose," so she "talked him quite silent." In addition to telling wonderful stories, Roberts also presents a very readable, serviceable account of politics-male and female-in early America. If only our standard history textbooks were written with such flair! 7 illus. not seen by PW.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–Focusing mainly on the wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers of the Founding Fathers, this lively and engaging title chronicles the adventures and contributions of numerous women of the era between 1740 and 1797. Roberts includes a surprising amount of original writings, but uses modern language and spellings to enable readers to enjoy fully the wit and wisdom of these remarkable individuals. While their men were away serving as soldiers, statesmen, or ambassadors, the women's lives were fraught with difficulty and danger. They managed property, and raised their children and often those of deceased relatives, while trying to make their own contributions to the cause of liberty. They acted as spies, coordinated boycotts, and raised funds for the army. Through it all, they corresponded with their husbands, friends, and even like-minded women in England. Readers will enjoy seeing how many of these individuals showed their mettle when they were still in their teens. Black-and-white photographs of portraits, a small selection of recipes, and a cast of characters are included.–Kathy Tewell, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

Celebratory history is making a big comeback. Cokie Roberts joins a steady stream of authors stoking the fires of patriotism. To the "Let us now praise famous men" refrain, she has countered with praise for their wives, sisters and daughters.

Most professional historians during the past four decades have turned from lauding the great events and men in the American past to reconstructing the neglected lives of ordinary people. There's a story behind this shift that helps explain the current outpouring of tributes to the country's Revolutionary leaders.

After World War II, American universities opened wide their doors to veterans whose education was funded by the G.I. Bill. African Americans and descendants of the immigrants from Italy, Greece, Poland, the Balkans and Germany who flooded into the United States at the turn of the 20th century entered college, usually the first in their families to do so. Many went on to get advanced degrees in history, as did lots of women.

These newcomers to higher education brought fresh questions to their calling. They wanted to know about ordinary people and sought to locate their own forbears in the American past, rather than study the WASP gentlemen and Midwestern radicals whose exploits filled the history books. Their rallying cry became "History from the bottom up."

Historical inquiries "from the bottom up" couldn't be answered in the traditional way. Ordinary people by definition didn't sit in Congress or the Oval Office, didn't lead armies or head diplomatic missions. So these newly minted historians turned to long-term data in local records offices and used computers and social scientific hypotheses to analyze their findings.

Those who wrote dissertations in the 1960s and '70s churned out questions about undistinguished Americans with great gusto, investigating such topics as their average age at marriage; the mortality and fertility rates that determined the growth and decline of population; the workday routines of the immigrant, the slave, the laboring man and woman; and patterns of inheritance and mobility. Not the stuff of celebratory history, but vastly important to understanding how past generations have dealt with the challenges and limitations they found in the United States. In 1960 there were only a handful of books on African Americans or women; today the volumes number in the tens of thousands.

Since these studies were often quite dry, with tables and graphs gracing pages that earlier would have contained evocative photos and pictures of paintings, the public knew little about this work. Not until parents discovered Harriet Tubman in their children's textbooks did they tumble to the fact that fife-and-drum history had been replaced by tales of hard times, disappointments, even failures experienced by those at the bottom. Rather than respond positively, many people labeled the new history "revisionism," a pejorative term that suggested the manipulation of sources rather than the acquisition of new knowledge.

Recent grumblings about the neglect of "dead white men" have prompted some non-academic historians and professional writers to go back to the heroes of the revolutionary era. One of the most popular books -- David McCullough's John Adams -- has sold almost 2 million copies, an unheard-of record for a work of history. Now every season brings still more publications on the founding era.

With Founding Mothers, Roberts fills a gap in our coverage of the era without straying far from the familiar story of colonial resistance, the struggle for independence and the climactic writing of the U.S. Constitution. We don't lose sight of the white male titans who built the nation; we just see them from the vantage point of the women they wooed and the families they worried about -- usually at a distance -- during America's longest war.

Husbands were separated from wives, sisters and brothers from each other, parents from their children. Almost all the relatives in this select, upper-class group bridged their separations by writing long letters filled with pithy descriptions of troop movements, laments about deaths and pleadings for reunions. Roberts has uncovered hundreds of personal anecdotes and woven them together in a single, suspenseful narrative with great skill. While she's out to demonstrate that the wives of America's heroes were a mighty force for independence, her storyteller's instincts generally win out over patriotic endorsements.

Founding Mothers has something of the tone of a book for young adults with its chatty commentary and references to the present. Many of Roberts's heroines are familiar to us. We find Eliza Pinckney, Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Mercy Warren and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton in these pages, but Roberts's exhaustive canvassing of the correspondence of these notable wives introduces us to dozens of new people.

These doyennes of American society kept running into each other during the war and its aftermath. Many of them were related, and others became so as the war expanded their social circle. Roberts artfully stitches together their separate and overlapping experiences, reminding us that in war as in peace, men and women go on courting, conceiving children, consoling the sick and mourning the dead. These domestic details quicken our sympathy for a cohort of women who faced a relentless succession of pregnancies -- each one a risk -- as well as virulent diseases that threatened their lives and those of their husbands and children.

Describing the trauma of a war fought close to home, Roberts details how Gen. Nathaniel Greene kept his wife informed of atrocities committed by the British Army. "Even the spirited Kitty was understandably terrified when the British landed in Newport, Rhode Island, and took the town without a struggle," Roberts reports. "She was pregnant again and afraid she had nowhere to hide." The reading public obviously craves stories of bravery, sacrifice and wisdom and rightly turns to the nation-building decades for models of conduct. But celebration has its pitfalls. In earlier times, the discounted story of Jessica Lynch raining bullets on her Iraqi attackers might have lived on -- as did the tale of Davy Crockett fighting to his last breath at the Alamo, when in fact he was overpowered and captured and then summarily executed by Santa Anna's men. Roberts, like those earlier historians, chooses to take the inspiring tales she tells at face value.

Celebratory histories give debunkers their work just as scholarly tomes create an appetite for suspenseful narratives. Rather than try to reconcile these differing stances towards the past, it's probably better to accept that our past is a rich reservoir for reconstructing structures, processes and patterns as well as mythic sagas. Where a professional historian would have analyzed the accounts Roberts gleaned from her research, she has invited us to suspend disbelief and simply enjoy her skill as a chronicler.

Reviewed by Joyce Appleby

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Remembering "The Ladies"
Cokie Roberts thoroughly enjoyed writing this tribute to the wives of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and other prominent women of the era . The book begins in the early 1700's. It ends when the presidency of George Washington ends and John Adams is elected, in 1797.

I appreciated the notes and the cast of characters including names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the signers of the Constitution, the players in the new government, women writers of the period, and famous soldiers and statesmen during the revolutionary war, which are included in the back of the book.

Excerpts from many letters are included and are so beautifully written.Let your imagination wander as you read vivid accounts of the sacrifices made by families who wanted independence from England - the yellow fever and smallpox epidemics, the building of a military, the contributions made by exceptional women such as Abigail Adams and Martha Washington, as well as Phillis Wheatley, Mercy Otis Warren, Sarah Livingston Jay, and many others portrayed here.

Cokie writes as if she is having fun telling us so many interesting facts about the "founding families", and I had fun learning more about them and relearning early American history.
The true story of Benedict Arnold and his wife was enlightening as well as the character of Alexander Hamilton.

You will enjoy learning about influential women in this book.
Cokie has inserted some of her own remarks to lighten up the picture, and she carefully recounts the contributions of each state as they represented the new government at that time; the
conflicts with the British,the alliance with the French, as well as inevitable partisan politics.

History Comes Alive ...
This is a very fascinating book and I am glad that I was able to buy it not too long ago. I remember reading the back of the book at the bookstore and thinking, "I have to have it." That first thought hasn't changed.

This book is written about women who influenced the leaders of the Revolutionary War, the first Continental Congress, the first Congress, first states and so on. These are women who have managed to keep the homefires burning, raising children and oftentimes, burying children, finding ways to keep their heads above financial debt while their husbands were away at war or at debates. These are women who have given up homes and friends to be with their husbands overseas on diplomatic missions ~~ women who published their thoughts and urged other patriots to fight in the war. These are not shy wall-flowers that other historical tomes would have you believe. These women really did back their influential husbands because they are strong women themselves.

This book covers the pre-War era, the Revolution, and the beginnings of a new country where it took men two years on how to decide to rule this brand-new country. This book was based on other biographies, letters exchanged among the women and among their husbands, and other historical tidbits that definitely made this book interesting. I know there are reviewers here who did not like Roberts' little asides and comments nor did they like her style of writing. I found it utterly fascinating and wanted to read more. It was disjointed in some places as she would wander off track for a little bit ~~ but I never had any trouble following her train of thought. It was just fascinating.

This book is a must-read for every true history reader. Not only did it contain political thoughts that these women have written or talked about ~~ it also contained customs of the times (which in some cases really haven't changed much over the years), personal thoughts of people who were actually there in the midst of the fighting and it definitely showed the Founding Fathers ~~ not as perfect men, but as human and oftentimes flawed. They become more real because Roberts took the time to make them more human and more interesting.

This book is definitely one of the top 10 for my 2006 booklist. I finished it in time to really enjoy the Fourth of July as now I understand these people a little bit better and can appreciate their fight more.

7-3-06

Great Women Who Backed Great Men. Outstanding Book!
Cokie Roberts did an outstanding job in this book showing the courage, strength, passion, and patriotism exemplified by the extraordinary women of our nation's history, and how they made the jobs of the men who formed our nation possible.

The women had a voice that was spoken behind-the-scenes. They took care of keeping their homes safe, even defending them against attack during volatile times.

The extraordinary women are role models of just how much a woman can accomplish while working in harmony with the men in their lives, which made it possible for much reform, change, and revitalization of America.

This book is an outstanding read for all who are interested in the authentic power of how much influence a woman can bring while backing, supporting, and working in harmony with the men in their lives. A great example of a win/win for all.

This book deserves 10 Stars! Highly Recommended!
Barbara Rose, author of "Stop Being the String Along: A Relationship Guide to Being THE ONE" and 'If God Was Like Man'
Editor of inspire! magazine