by Cokie Roberts (Author)
While I know a little bit about US history, Roberts' new book contains material that is a revelation. The letters of former First Ladies and other women who were on the scene at the founding of our nation provides the primary source material. Their takes from yesteryear on topics as diverse as infant mortality, foreign policy, and event hats (!) gives a new and much-needed perspective on life and culture in early America.
While women are obviously and profoundly influential on historical events in America, Roberts had to closely study their correspondences to learn how. (In other words, "traditional" histories aren't helpful in this regard.) While perusing the letters of an age gone by, the author shows her eye for the telling (and juicy) anecdote, and she does an excellent and witty job of putting these words from yesteryear into context for the contemporary reader.
In Founding Mothers, Cokie Roberts paid homage to the heroic women whose patriotism and sacrifice helped create a new nation. Now the number one New York Times bestselling author and renowned political commentator—praised in USA Today as a "custodian of time-honored values"—continues the story of early America's influential women with Ladies of Liberty. In her "delightfully intimate and confiding" style (Publishers Weekly), Roberts presents a colorful blend of biographical portraits and behind-the-scenes vignettes chronicling women's public roles and private responsibilities.
Recounted with the insight and humor of an expert storyteller and drawing on personal correspondence, private journals, and other primary sources—many of them previously unpublished—Roberts brings to life the extraordinary accomplishments of women who laid the groundwork for a better society. Almost every quotation here is written by a Woman, to a woman, or about a woman. From first ladies to freethinkers, educators to explorers, this exceptional group includes Abigail Adams, Margaret Bayard Smith, Martha Jefferson, Dolley Madison, Elizabeth Monroe, Louisa Catherine Adams, Eliza Hamilton, Theodosia Burr, Rebecca Gratz, Louisa Livingston, Rosalie Calvert, Sacajawea, and others. In a much-needed addition to the shelves of Founding Father literature, Roberts sheds new light on the generation of heroines, reformers, and visionaries who helped shape our nation, giving these ladies of liberty the recognition they so greatly deserve.
