"Great summary of six of the founding fathers for those who may not want the minutia of their entire lives but still containing bits of new information that the history buff may not have known (like me). All the more remarkable, then, that these women loomed so large in the lives of their husbands-and, in some cases, their country. While often brilliant and articulate, the wives of the founding fathers all struggled with the distractions and dangers of frequent childbearing and searing anxiety about infant mortality. He offers a powerful look at the challenges women faced in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Jefferson's controversial relationship to Sally Hemings is also examined, with a different vision of where his heart lay.įleming nimbly takes us through a great deal of early American history, as the founding fathers strove to reconcile their private and public lives, often beset by a media every bit as gossip-seeking and inflammatory as ours today. We learn of the youthful Washington's tortured love for the coquettish Sarah Fairfax, wife of his close friend of Franklin's two "wives," one in London and one in Philadelphia of Adams' long absences, which required a lonely, deeply unhappy Abigail to keep home and family together for years on end of Hamilton's adulterous betrayal of his wife and their reconciliation and how the brilliant Madison was jilted by a flirtatious fifteen-year-old and went on to marry the effervescent Dolley, who helped make this shy man into a popular president.
But lovers and wives played more critical roles as friends and often partners in fame.
With his usual storytelling flair and unparalleled research, Tom Fleming offers a compelling, intimate look at the founders-George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison-and the women who played essential roles in their lives.įrom hot-tempered Mary Ball Washington to promiscuous Rachel Lavien Hamilton, the founding fathers' mothers powerfully shaped their sons' visions of domestic life.
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