Books 2021: Women, Not Wallflowers, Helped Raise Up the United States

Book: Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

Author: Cokie Roberts

Review by: Michael Manely, family law attorney at The Manely Firm P.C.

As it turns out, women of the American Revolution were not wallflowers. In fact, as “Founding Mothers” shows, without their overwhelming and relentless effort, bravery and persistence, the overthrow of British rule would not have been successful.

I wanted to read this book because history, as taught by my schools, was almost always about well-to-do white men who apparently created the bounty of the earth from nothing, tamed the world with their earnest, excellent ideas and eloquence (or overwhelming fire power when rhetoric wouldn’t do) and hung the moon so that others might bask in their greatness. I suspected that history was half-baked at best and that there was far more to the story. The women who raised me weren’t wallflowers; I suspected the women who raised our nation weren’t either.

These women of the American Revolution kept the home fires burning to be sure, but they also kept the family businesses thriving, the morale of the army uplifted, the political will for a new nation rising, and when called upon, directly defended the home and hearth from invading British troops. In most instances, these women were the glue that held the headstrong egos of our founding fathers together.

Ms. Roberts has done an expert job of researching and communicating the stories of these amazing women. I recommend this book to everyone who seeks a far more studied history of how this nation really came to be, the politics of real time.

Read previous reviews by Michael Manely: 

Books 2020: A Novel Explores the Universal Story of Trees

Books 2019: A Decade Later, Revisiting the Ramifications of a Warmer Planet