Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation by Cokie Roberts

"If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women."
                                              -Abigail Adams

I selected this book for March, Women's History Month. It has been on my to-read list for a couple of years at least. Followers of my blog know my favorite genre is historical fiction but may not know I am also something of a history buff; I'm particularly into 18th century American history. I teach a course called "Colonial American Life from A to Z" at Rollins College's Lifelong Learning Center, and perform a monologue as "Sarah Charleton, A Woman of Colonial America."

From that background, you might guess that I enjoyed reading Founding Mothers.... You'd be right. However, it did take a while as it is very dense in history and includes many letters and other period writings which have unfamiliar styling. Definitely NOT a page-turner but I'll rate it a 4. I'm glad I read it but I'm far from certain other Page Turners will agree. I may have selected this non-fiction too soon after Hidden Figures, our January title, which was also loaded with facts and somewhat tedious.

In Founding Mothers...Cokie Roberts submits that wives, mothers and sisters of the "Founding Fathers" played significant roles in "raising our nation." She highlights numerous women who ran businesses, raised children (and buried far too many), raised money, gave advice and information and some who even followed their husbands to military encampments. Almost all made sacrifices of time, energy, comfort, wealth and some, like Abigail Adams, spent months and years without their spouses who were serving in Europe, Philadelphia or in the army. I was aware of some of the featured women from previous reading and research---Martha Washington, Abigail Adams and to a lesser degree, Eliza Pinckney. Many others I knew almost nothing about---Kitty Greene, Lucy Knox, Mercy Otis Warren and more.

I have long admired the relationship of John and Abigail Adams since seeing the film (and later the stage musical) of "1776." If you enjoy this book and haven't seen it, you simply MUST!

Although the author makes the effort to chronologize the stories of these women, it is not always possible and she ends up with a good bit of overlap and repetition. Ms. Roberts adds occasional personal comments which are humorous.

In reading Founding Mothers one cannot help but think of the phrase that begins "behind every great man..." but in the 80's the Eurythmics sang in "Sisters Are Doin' It for Themselves":

Now, there was a time,
when they used to say,
that behind ev'ry great man,
there had to be a great woman.
But oh, in these times of change,
you know that it's no longer true.
So we're comin' out of the kitchen,
'cause there's something we forgot to say to you.
We say, Sisters are doin' it for themselves.

I am looking forward to our Page Turners' meeting. More after that...

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Seventeen of us attended our Page Turners meeting today to discuss Founding Mothers. The average rating was 3.1 with mostly 3's, only one 5 and a few 2's. We did have a lively discussion using the publisher's questions. Those who read the entire book agreed that we learned a lot and even "met" some ladies we knew nothing about. Some negative comments were: wordy, repetitive, too much overlap of information. One person said she liked the content but thought the structure got in the way. We were all impressed with what women were able to accomplish back in the day with so few rights and privileges. Their stories are inspiring, to say the least!

(BTW I have promised to put more space between the nonfictions the rest of the year!)