Madison Dolley - Dolley Madison: the problem of national unity

Carol Berkin, Series Editor

Westview Press is pleased to launch Lives of American Women. Selected and edited by renowned womens historian Carol Berkin, these brief, affordably priced biographies are designed for use in undergraduate courses. Rather than a comprehensive approach, each biography focuses instead on a particular aspect of a womans life that is emblematic of her time, or which made her a pivotal figure in the era. The emphasis is on a good read, featuring accessible writing and compelling narratives, without sacrificing sound scholarship and academic integrity. Primary sources at the end of each biography reveal the subjects perspective in her own words. Study Questions and an Annotated Bibliography support the student reader.

Dolley Madison: The Problem of National Unity by Catherine Allgor

Lillian Gilbreth: Redefining Domesticity by Julie Des Jardins

Alice Paul: Equality for Women by Christine Lunardini

Rebecca Dickinson: Independence for a New England Woman by Marla Miller

Sarah Livingston Jay: Model Republican Woman by Mary-Jo Kline

Betsy Mix Cowles: Bold Reformer by Stacey Robertson

Sally Hemings: Given Her Time by Jon Kukla

Shirley Chisholm: Catalyst for Change by Barbara Winslow

Margaret Sanger: Freedom, Controversy and the Birth Control Movement by Esther Katz

Barbara Egger Lennon: Teacher, Mother, Activist by Tina Brakebill

Anne Hutchinson: A Dissident Womans Boston by Vivian Bruce Conger

Angela Davis: Radical Icon by Robyn Spencer

Catharine Beecher: The Complexity of Gender in 19th Century America by Cindy Lobel

Julia Lathrop: Social Service and Progressive Government by Miriam Cohen

Mary Pickford: Women, Film and Selling Girlhood by Kathy Feeley

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn: The Making of the Modern Woman by Lara Vapnek

Dolley
Madison

The Problem of National Unity

CATHERINE ALLGOR

University of California, Riverside

LIVES OF AMERICAN WOMEN

Carol Berkin, Series Editor

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

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EBOOK ISBN: 978-0-8133-4760-8

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For contemporary Americans, it is often tempting to look back with nostalgia on the early years of our nation. We stand reverently before the portraits and statutes of national statesmen like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton and admire them for their optimism, their clear vision, and their confidence that this bold experiment in representative government would endure. These members of our founding generation would surely delight in our admiration, but would they recognize themselves or their colleagues in the myths we spin about them? Surely not. Most of the men who wrote the Constitution believed that the republic it established would last little more than a decade. They had reason to be anxious: in the 1790s and early 1800s they faced diplomatic crises with foreign countries, domestic uprisings, and ultimately a second war with their former mother country, Great Britain. But perhaps their greatest challenge was how to forge an