Founding Mothers - Cokie Roberts

Title: Founding Mothers: The Women who Raised our Nation

Author: Cokie Roberts

Year: 2004

Country: USA

Pages: 348 pgs.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

First sentence: When you hear of a family with two brothers who fought heroically in the Revolutionary War, served their state in high office, and emerged as key figures in the new American nation, don't you immediately think, "They must have had a remarkable mother"?

I remember very little about my schooling on the Revolutionary War, other than an awarness that my old history books were filled with dates of battles, and the heroics of soldiers, and not much else. Therefore, when I first picked up this book, I met quite a few people I should have heard of...but didn't.

I never knew that one of the most influential writers of the Revolutionary area was a woman, Mery Otis Warren. That a British writer and feminist--Catherine McCauley played a large part in influencing the minds of the American federalists. That a woman was the money (and a good part of the intellect) behind Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin--Eliza Lucas Pinckney. There are many more stories in Founding Mothers of women who helped to shape the newly created American nation.

You can tell that Roberts was meticulous in her research into the women who provided a vast amount of courage, patriotism, and dedication to a fledgling nation that afforded them hardly any rights. It is also very obvious that this is a book that she truly enjoyed writing, the author's passion for the topic shines through. One of the only downsides is that the reader is often bounced from topic to topic, which, for someone without a solid knowledge about the Revolutionary Era, can become a bit confusing. Especially when so many people shared similar names!

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