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A review by amymo73
Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts
4.0
I have a bunch of books about American history on my bookshelf (ok bookshelves. I have bookshelves in pretty much every room of my house) and decided to read one for the Fourth of July. Cokie's book has been on my to-read book for years, so dive in I went.
It was a great read with snippets of Cokie's voice. Here's the main takeaway: women had a lot to do with the American Revolution and birthing the new nation. While the men were organizing and fighting, the women were keeping businesses and finances afloat (even though they could own none of what they were working to save because, you know, they were married women and hence could not own property). Women had plenty of opinions about liberty and freedom and nation building. They had influence. It just was never recorded.
Huh. Seems to happen a lot in history, right? Voices are ignored or written out of the story. How vital it is to find those voices and listen to them.
The biggest names in the book are Martha Washington and Abigail Adams -- not just because they were married to the first two presidents but because the most has been saved and written about them. Abigail in particular seems pretty darn feisty. (Note to self: read more about Abigail Adams) She was more pro-revolution than her husband in the beginning!
And perhaps my favorite quote in the book is from Martha Washington: "The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances."
It was a great read with snippets of Cokie's voice. Here's the main takeaway: women had a lot to do with the American Revolution and birthing the new nation. While the men were organizing and fighting, the women were keeping businesses and finances afloat (even though they could own none of what they were working to save because, you know, they were married women and hence could not own property). Women had plenty of opinions about liberty and freedom and nation building. They had influence. It just was never recorded.
Huh. Seems to happen a lot in history, right? Voices are ignored or written out of the story. How vital it is to find those voices and listen to them.
The biggest names in the book are Martha Washington and Abigail Adams -- not just because they were married to the first two presidents but because the most has been saved and written about them. Abigail in particular seems pretty darn feisty. (Note to self: read more about Abigail Adams) She was more pro-revolution than her husband in the beginning!
And perhaps my favorite quote in the book is from Martha Washington: "The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions and not upon our circumstances."