Founders as Fathers: The Private Lives and Politics of the American Revolutionaries

by Lorri Glover

Overview

As the bold fathers of the American Revolution left behind their private lives to become public nation-builders, what happened to their families?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300178609
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	09/30/2014
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Lorri Glover is John Francis Bannon Endowed Chair, Department of History, Saint Louis University. She is author of four previous books on early American history, including The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown. She lives in St. Louis, MO.

Interviews

Q: How great was the sacrifice of the Virginia revolutionaries?
A: It is hard to remember now how dangerous and audacious it was in the eighteenth century for men like Jefferson and Washington to announce that they, upstart farmers living on the far periphery of the English empire, knew better how to govern than King George himself. On paper, the Continental Army had virtually no chance of beating the greatest military in the western world. The men who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged away their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. Seeing that through took lifetimes of sacrifice and resolve.
 
Q: What values did the founders share?
A: Though several became bitter rivals who carried their enmity to the grave, they did share many foundational values: they idealized education, civic virtue, financial independence, rationalism, self-determination, and seeking the common good in civic life. Perhaps most fatefully, though, they all remained unshakably committed to racial slavery, which made their families wealthy, white citizens in their Republic free and equal, and their Revolution fatally flawed. 
 
Q: Did the children of these men tend to follow their fathers into public life?
A: That varied wildly. The Jefferson grandchildren devoted themselves to cleaning up his image for history. They, as well as Dolley Madison, worked to make these men’s writings available to the public. Several of Patrick Henry's and George Mason’s sons served admirably in government and ran successful businesses. But no matter how much they achieved, they could never get out of the shadow of their fathers, the founders. Even the obituaries of the most successful of the founders’ children focused on their famous ancestors.

Editorial Reviews

07/21/2014
With an inventive twist on the “founding fathers” moniker, historian Glover (The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown) probes the link between family and politics, but limits her focus to the lives of wealthy Virginians. Men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Glover persuasively argues, became the founders of a new country precisely because of their views on fatherhood and family and because they were family men. She moves briskly from the imperial crisis of the 1760s through the generation that followed the creation of the Constitution, demonstrating the importance of familial words and ideas to the launch of a new country, always keeping tight rein on her argument. It’s a sophisticated history peppered with tidbits from the private sphere: of particular interest is the chapter on the Virginians’ wrestle with the institution of slavery, especially because it benefited their own families and fortunes even while clashing with enlightened principles of freedom and independence. As a social historian, Glover covers gender as well as racial issues, exploring women’s roles in the family and the nation, and explaining how the founders viewed the inequality of women as part of the world’s natural order. Fans of these influential men should delight in this inventive addition to the historical literature. Illus. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

“Elegantly written and sparkling with keen insights, Lorri Glover's splendid book recasts our understanding of the American Revolution by revealing the surprising world in which the sons of liberty were fathers before they were founders—repeatedly forced to balance their deeply held responsibilities as parents with calls to lean in for independence and a new republic.”—Jon Kukla, author of Mr. Jefferson’s Women and A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America

Jon Kukla

“By exploring how the political careers and patriarchal roles of Virginia’s Revolutionary leaders were inextricably linked, Lorri Glover tells a profoundly human story about the nation’s beginnings.”—Virginia DeJohn Anderson, author of Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America

Virginia DeJohn Anderson

“A lively, highly readable account of the competing loyalties of Virginia’s founding fathers. George Mason, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison come alive as fathers of families and stewards of estates, struggling to balance their domestic responsibilities with the political demands of war, revolution, and national formation.”—Kathleen M. Brown, University of Pennsylvania

Kathleen M. Brown

“With a deft touch, Lorri Glover captures the domestic life and concerns of Virginia’s Founders as they pass from colonial protesters to scions of the first families of the new nation’s most important state. Wives and children share the spotlight in this excellently conceived study.”—Joyce Appleby, author of Shores of Knowledge: New World Discoveries and the Scientific Imagination

Joyce Appleby

★ 2014-07-13
A superb new perspective on America's Founding Fathers. Glover (The Shipwreck that Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America, 2008, etc.) explores the family lives of five remarkable Virginia planter-patriarchs who helped shaped the rebellion against England, commanded the Continental Army and led the early continental governments. At a time when fatherhood entailed responsibility for the well-being of their communities, their relatives and the social order, these dutiful gentry fathers ran their plantations, mastered their slaves and served in political office. Writing with authority, she traces the often overlooked private lives of elite men who preferred the joys of plantation life ("our own Vine and our own fig tree") but deemed their revolutionary cause "a parental obligation." These Virginians were Thomas Jefferson, who, like the others, inherited racial power as well as land, money and family ties; grief-stricken widower George Mason, who took care of the "lesser sort" through public service; Patrick Henry, who kept his insane wife in a basement storage room; James Madison, who struggled with a stepson's drunkenness and gambling; and George Washington, who chose fathering a country over domestic life. Drawing on primary sources, Glover describes their rarefied lives of leisure and wealth and shows the many ways in which their political actions affected their domestic lives, and vice versa. The war prompted "a revolution in family values," with fathers unable to exert their usual influence over a younger generation of declining virtue and morality. It also gave rise to a 19th-century world in which talent and achievement began to supersede the old hereditary power. For all that, women were still denied full civic participation (Jefferson's granddaughter could not attend his University of Virginia), and slaves, deemed a critical part of these gentry families, remained slaves. Well-written and immensely rewarding, this important book will appeal to both scholars and general readers.

Kirkus Reviews