Kirjahaku

Challenges popular misconceptions to profile the nation's original first lady as the widowed mother of two children who became Washington's beloved partner and a mainstay in his powerful and stressful life, drawing on numerous sources to reveal her contributions to American character as well as her passionate commitment to her family. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

The forty-year love affair between Rachel and Andrew Jackson parallels a tumultuous period in American history. During this time, the fledgling United States more than doubled in size, and political power moved closer to true democracy for white men. Andrew Jackson was at the forefront of that revolution - but he never could have made it without the support of his wife. Beautiful, charismatic and generous, Rachel Jackson had the courage to go against the mores of her times in the name of love. As the wife of a great general in wartime, she often found herself running their plantation alone and, a true Revolutionary War-era heroine, she took in and raised the orphaned children her husband brought home from the front. Like all great love stories, this one also ends tragically when Rachel dies, only a few weeks after Andrew is elected president. He moved into the White House alone and never remarried. Andrew and Rachel Jackson's devotion to one another is inspiring, and here, for the first time, their story of love and loss comes to life in Patricia Brady's vivid prose.

Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis (1779–1852) was in many ways the quintessential southern lady, but as Martha Washington's granddaughter by her first marriage and George Washington's adopted daughter, she was also something of an American celebrity. Her lifelong correspondence with childhood friend Elizabeth Bordley Gibson records the experiences of the first family, the social and political gossip of the new republic's elite circle, and the difficulties of motherhood and marriage. Edited by Patricia Brady, the voluminous and unguarded letters also reveals the complex cast of family and friends associated with the Washington household, the details of plantation life, and the social limitations placed on even the most privileged eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women. This edition features an updated introduction from Brady.