The Letter as History

Bemoaning her personal restrictions as First Lady, Martha Washington penned the following to a friend, “Indeed I am more like a state prisoner than anything else. There are certain boundaries set for me which I cannot depart from.”

Were it not for such confessions, garnered from the letters of 18th century female Americans, little would be remembered about the prominent role   women played in the birth of our country.

Founding Mothers, authored by Cokie Roberts, a senior analyst for NPR News, contributes greatly to the historical picture of women.

Even though the system of coverture suspended  legal existence of the married woman, the constantly pregnant colonial matron oftentimes ran the family business or farm while nursing and tending the illnesses of her family and neighbors.

“Men handled relations with England,” Roberts quipped, “while the women handled pretty much everything else.”

While her inventor husband spent many years of their married life abroad, Deborah Franklin helped run the postal system, invested in real estate, managed the finances, cared for relatives and saved the family home from an angry mob.

Whether out of frustration or fatigue, the 60-year-old Mrs. Franklin ceased writing to her absentee husband who was finally forced to return home in December 1774 when the valiant lady died.

With the approach of the Revolutionary War, written material by women became a source of inspiration and information.  The first shots rang out at Lexington and Concord, just two weeks after the publication of Mercy Otis Warren’s pamphlet, The Group, advocating freedom from England.

Eavesdropping on British soldiers quartered in her home, Lydia Darragh recorded troop activities  and cleverly hid her coded messages behind the large buttons on the coat she messengered to her son serving under  General Washington.

In her Sentiments of an American Lady,  British born Esther Reed urged that the money saved by wearing simpler clothing and less elegantly dressed hair be donated to the Pennsylvania troops.  This collection, ‘the offering of the ladies,’  raised  $300,000 in just a few days and soon spread to  nearby states.

Criticism of Founding Mothers centers around the organization of facts presented not the researched material itself. Writing in chronological order, the author jumps back, as much as 10 years or more, each time a new character is introduced.

Paragraph length, was also another area of complaint with one paragraph being over a page long. In agreement, long paragraphs do make for slow reading.

Choosing the next month’s reading material can sometimes bring a clash of suggestions.  Thankfully,  larger library systems have begun to supply a recommended reading list.  This list includes any book with multiple copies available for circulation.

Once a title is agreed upon, a simple phone call secures enough copies of your choice for any given month including a synopsis, reviews, author’s biography and discussion questions nicely  housed in a canvas bag. However, popular titles must sometimes be reserved months in advance.

For those book clubbers  not in metropolitan areas,  it’s a trip to  the local library, bookstore or amazon.com.

For the most part, novels with clearly defined, dominant characters seem to produce a more rousing discussion.  Nonfiction titles such as Eat, Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert’s search  for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia; Under the Tuscan Sun, the step-by-step renovation of a Tuscan villa by Frances Mayes and Jeanette Walls‘ memoir, The Glass Castle were not big hits.

A suggested read by our local history buff, Founding Mothers was a first experience with actual events in a historical context.  But with such celebrated characters as Abigail and John Adams, Martha and George Washington, Benedict Arnold and his wife, Peggy Shippen, everyone had ideas and opinions to share.  Because the detailed narrative is jam packed with information, most  of those in attendance referred to notes taken while reading the selection.

Discussion questions for Founding Mothers will follow in the next post.