This book has a light and interesting tone that I found very engrossing. While this is easy to read/approachable it is also heavily researched, which is nice. Very accessible for those interested in more info on the Founding Fathers that's not about battles and negotiations. I found the section on John Adams the most interesting and enlightening. I also liked how much information was included about the wives and the parts they played in their husbands successes.
I found the references used to explain the lives and treatment of enslaved peoples was based on sources that are too dated to be valid as used. An example would be in the chapter on Washington. The author says that slave women lie about the white father's of their children. The source for this is from a book published in the 1980's. There's considerably less dated sources available that explain this from the point of view of the enslaved person which is currently how we process this type of situation. Enslaved women had no right to accuse white men of fathering their children. Mostly they did not name the father of their mixed children. It's part of not acknowledging slave families as valid. This blaming the enslaved woman at the expense of the slave owning white men sits poorly with me. I have no issue with the author choosing not to believe that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings children. My problem lies with the portraying of her as a harlot. Callender portrayed 'Dusky' Sally Hemings in a series of racist hyper sexual stereotypes commonly accepted as fact in his age. The problem is this is published in 2009. A time at which the author clearly understood that slavery in any form was wrong and chattel slavery the worst incarnation yet. That sex is only sex if consent exists. That racist caricatures were used to excuse chattel slavery. Enslaved person's by virtue of their enslavement are unable to consent to sex with any white person, as all white people acted as authority figures to all black people. Much less any white person who was acting as owner/overseer. We recognise this today in not allowing professors to date students, managers/bosses to date employees. Sally Hemings was raped by whatever white man fathered her children. Even if she thought she loved him and thought he loved her, by virtue of this man holding and/or leaving her enslaved she was unable to consent. So to suggest Sally was a harlot is to blame her for her own abuse and perpetuates what was done to her during life time. It's the worst form of biography/history when academics become so attached to their subjects that they perpetuate outdated bigotry.
It's worth noting that Sally Hemings hidden room is currently being excavated at Monticello. ( )

This may just be the best non-fiction I've read in quite awhile. Mr. Fleming has certainly done his research and also presents two sides to the story, if at all possible. He draws on letters, diaries, journals, etc. In this book he showcased: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin. I liked how the author addressed rumors, where they probably started, reasons for them, and in the best scholarship possible, analyzed their veracity. It seems there is nothing new in politics, the slander, the misinformation, etc. In the case of Washington, several detractors had his signature forged to make it appear as if he was carrying on an affair. ( )

I found this book to be interesting because it provided insight into the family life of these famous people. It taught me the lesson that these people dealt with relationships, health problems, finances, and other common issues. I enjoyed the book and learned some from it. I recommend this book freely. ( )

This book was interesting to me because I did much research into America's revolutionary times when I was writing The Lees of Menokin, a fictional account of the life of Francis Lightfoot Lee, a Virginia signer of the Declaration. It was light and thought-provoking. And with three of the six men featured being Virginians, I felt right at home. ( )

This overview of the lives of the Founding Fathers shifts the focus of our attention to the women who exercised the most influence over their lives.

Fleming looks at six Founders: Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and Madison and explains: "Knowing and understanding the women in their lives adds pathos and depth to the pubic dimensions of the founding fathers’ political journeys. … In their loves and losses, their hopes and fears, they are more like us than we have dared to imagine.”

Several of the Founders had dashed romantic hopes with other women before they found their life mates. George Washington was said to be smitten by Sally Fairfax, the wife of his neighbor. James Madison, at age thirty-one, fell in love with fifteen-year-old Kitty Floyd, but she rejected him for a younger man. Jefferson was besotted by Rebecca Burwell for five years, to no avail. Even John Adams had a love before Abigail; he was infatuated with Hannah Quincy, but she chose another.

There are lots of entertaining tidbits in this book. Perhaps the most interesting stories concern Dolley Madison, whose influence caused people to bestow on her the [new] title of “First Lady.” Dolley was determined to counterbalance her husband’s reticence, social ineptitude, and unpopularity. As Fleming notes, “by day she was a tireless visitor, leaving her calling cards all over the city.” At night, she organized lavish social events, inviting so many people the parties were known as “squeezes.” When the invading British army burned the White House in 1814, it was Dolley that stayed back despite the danger to save George Washington’s portrait and the White House copy of the Declaration of Independence. But Dolley’s influence wasn’t only of the social kind. Her husband kept her apprised of domestic and foreign affairs, and she used her visits and soirees to push positions amenable to the administration.

Dolley also expended a great deal of energy in a way similar to that of the other first ladies: supporting her husband and boosting his morale in the early, critical days of the Republic. These men were pioneers, and during their lifetimes they were often vilified, slandered, unappreciated, and subsequently dispirited. During the Revolutionary War, Washington’s spirits notably approved whenever Martha arrived in the encampments. Adams, who possibly was a manic depressive, was particularly dependent on Abigail to pick him up when his emotions laid him low. Hamilton’s wife stood by him when he was forced to admit to an affair that led him to be blackmailed for a time.

Fleming devotes the most space to Jefferson, and the Sally Hemings question. Despite his unflinching portrait of Jefferson’s shortcomings in other books, here, Fleming seems to want us to give Jefferson our sympathy. He portrays Jefferson as an airy, poetry-spouting, head-in-the-clouds kind of guy, who was totally devoted to his wife Martha. If emotionally upset, Jefferson would get stricken with a migraine that could incapacitate him for weeks. Martha had a weak constitution and constant pregnancies didn’t help. Jefferson hovered over her, nursing her himself. When Martha sank into a coma, Jefferson blacked out. She died in 1782, just ten years after they were married, when Jefferson was thirty-nine.

The Hemingses, a slave family, came to Monticello prior to Martha’s death, after Martha's father died in 1773. Reportedly they were the children of her father by a half-black slave mother, Elizabeth Hemings. Thus Sally Hemings was Martha’s half-sister.

At the time of Martha’s death, Jefferson had three living daughters. He left them with a relative and went to France to help negotiate a peace treaty. Later, he returned to France, taking eldest daughter Martha with him. When Jefferson requested that his next oldest girl, Polly, come to France also, Polly's aunt sent along Sally Hemings as Polly's chaperon.

Eventually Sally had six children. In Jefferson’s will (he died on July 4, 1826), Jefferson freed all the Hemingses (except Sally - more on that momentarily). According to Fleming, who doesn't accept the theory that Jefferson had a long term affair with Sally Hemings and fathered several children by her, Jefferson's favorable treatment was a reflection of the Hemings' relationship to his late wife Martha. He also was opposed to the slavery of third generation mulattos. Fleming does not indicate why Sally was not freed, but Virginia had a 1806 removal law requiring freed slaves to leave the state within a year. Later, Jefferson’s daughter gave Sally her "time," which was an informal way of bestowing freedom without incurring the effects of the removal law. It has been speculated in other sources besides this book that Jefferson did not want to give fodder to rumor-mongers by freeing Sally outright; nor did he want to force her to leave the state. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation speculates that Jefferson probably made a verbal agreement with his daughter Martha before he died to adopt this strategy, but there is no evidence for it.

Fleming proffers myriad arguments that Jefferson was not the father of Sally Hemings children: (1) her children seem to have come from at least two separate fathers, going by their reported appearances [and showing that Fleming is better at understanding history than genetics]; (2) the DNA evidence only shows that someone in Jefferson’s family fathered (some of) the children; (3) Jefferson remained passionately devoted to the memory of his wife and to his living children and grandchildren; and (4) furtive sex for thirty-eight years would have been highly unlikely in a house “swarming with visitors and grandchildren” with all of the bedrooms in the same wing. [See our review of The Hemingses of Monticello providing evidence for a different view.]

Evaluation: Fleming’s dedication of this book, listing all of the women in his life, indicates that he wanted to give them a gift: an affirmation that women played an important role in the founding of the country. He does a fine job on that score. The portraits of both the Founders and their wives are a bit sketchy, since the author is covering six of them in one book, but he does a nice job in picking out the highlights of their careers. If you would like an overview of the lives of the Founding Fathers that also shows how much women contributed (to the extent they were allowed) to the country’s beginnings, this is a great place to start. ( )