Ladies of Liberty

Starred review from April 7, 2008
In this entertaining follow-up to 2004's Founding Mothers: The Women who Raised Our Nation, Roberts recounts the lives of first ladies, and their associates, from the John and Abigail Adams White House up through Monroe's 1818-1825 term. Though it's well known women at the time couldn't vote or own property, it's surprising how respected, and influential, Roberts's subjects were. As sitting President, Thomas Jefferson "urged all the 'heads of departments' in Washington" to read Mercy Warren's history of the American Revolution, which prompted Alexander Hamilton to declare, "female genius in the United States has outstripped the male." Other intriguing figures include Louisa Catherine Adams, wife to John Quincy, whose story takes her into the court-life of Russia and Austria; the sociable Dolley Payne Madison, known affectionately as "Queen Dolley"; Elizabeth Monroe, a staid (and sickly) return to formality; and a host of children, acquaintances, advisors and socialites (including Federalist Rosalie Stier Calvert and Republican Margaret Bayard Smith, whose letters "often read as a political point counterpoint").While Roberts' aim is to see the period from her subjects' point of view, she is not uncritical; for instance, Roberts casts blame on Mrs. Adams's uncompromising partisanship "in the undoing of her husband." With a little-seen perspective and fascinating insight into the culture of the day, this is popular history done right.

October 10, 2016
Roberts and Goode (Founding Mothers) again adapt one of Roberts’s adult bestsellers into a picture book. Thorough research into letters, diaries, and other writings underpins brief biographies of 10 women who made positive impacts in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. Roberts mostly features lesser-known, reform-minded activists—such as Rebecca Gratz, who founded the first U.S. orphanage for Jewish children—but other spotlighted women include Lucy Terry Prince, who composed the first-known poem by an African-American; Native American guide Sacagawea; and First Ladies Louisa Catherine Adams and Elizabeth Kortright Monroe. Short write-ups about other notable women are found in interspersed spreads. While the anecdotes don’t always segue seamlessly, Roberts’s storytelling style is both relaxed and direct. Goode’s softly-hued portraits and vignettes employ curvy, calligraphic lines in sepia that echo handwriting. This collection succeeds in emphasizing that many unsung women, “toiling to make America a more perfect place for all of its people,” left their mark well before the suffrage movement. Ages 6–10. Author’s agent: Robert Barnett, Williams & Connolly. Illustrator’s agent: Steven Malk, Writers House.