Founders as Fathers

July 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.

Starred review from August 1, 2014
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.

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