Ladies of Liberty; The Women Who Shaped Our Nation

New York: William Morrow, 2008. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xxiii, [3], 481, [3] pages. Illustrations. Recipes. Cast of Characters. Notes. Index. Inscribed by the author. Inscription reads To Kailin--Cokie Roberts. The book addresses women's public roles and private responsibilities during the Presidential terms of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts (née Boggs; born December 27, 1943), best known as Cokie Roberts, is an American journalist and author. She is a reporter on contract to National Public Radio as well as a regular roundtable analyst for the current This Week With George Stephanopoulos. Roberts also works as a commentator for ABC News, serving as an on-air analyst for the network. She serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations such as the Kaiser Family Foundation and was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on Service and Civic Participation. Roberts serves as a senior news analyst and commentator (since 1992) for NPR, where she was the congressional correspondent for more than ten years. In addition to her work for NPR, Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News, serving as an on-air analyst for the network. Roberts was the co-anchor of the ABC News' Sunday morning broadcast, This Week with Sam Donaldson & Cokie Roberts from 1996 to 2002, while serving as the chief congressional analyst for ABC News. She covered politics, Congress and public policy, reporting for World News Tonight and other ABC News broadcasts. In Founding Mothers, Cokie Roberts paid homage to the heroic women whose patriotism and sacrifice helped create a new nation. Now the number one New York Times bestselling author and renowned political commentator, praised in USA Today as a "custodian of time-honored values", continues the story of early America's influential women with Ladies of Liberty. In her "delightfully intimate and confiding" style (Publishers Weekly), Roberts presents a colorful blend of biographical portraits and behind-the-scenes vignettes chronicling women's public roles and private responsibilities. Recounted with the insight and humor of an expert storyteller and drawing on personal correspondence, private journals, and other primary sources, many of them previously unpublished, Roberts brings to life the extraordinary accomplishments of women who laid the groundwork for a better society. Almost every quotation here is written by a woman, to a woman, or about a woman. From first ladies to freethinkers, educators to explorers, this exceptional group includes Abigail Adams, Margaret Bayard Smith, Martha Jefferson, Dolley Madison, Elizabeth Monroe, Louisa Catherine Adams, Eliza Hamilton, Theodosia Burr, Rebecca Gratz, Louisa Livingston, Rosalie Calvert, Sacajawea, and others. In a much-needed addition to the shelves of Founding Father literature, Roberts sheds new light on the generation of heroines, reformers, and visionaries who helped shape our nation, giving these ladies of liberty the recognition they so greatly deserve.