Pioneer Mothers of America, Volume 1

Before they were legends, they were women. This volume resurrects the largely untold stories of the mothers and wives who built the foundations of American citizenship. From Pocahontas, whose alliance with Jamestown colonists reshaped the course of colonial history, to Priscilla Mullins of Plymouth, who survived the horrors of the first winter only to become a cornerstone of a new community, these are not the figures we see on currency or monuments. They are the women who kept families alive through brutal winters, who negotiated with unfamiliar cultures, who raised future citizens while nationhood was still a daring experiment. Martha Washington and the wives of the Signers receive their due here, not as appendages to famous husbands but as architects of the domestic foundations upon which revolutionary ideals had to actually live. Green writes with the conviction that understanding these women is essential to understanding what American citizenship was meant to become. For readers hungry for history that centers the overlooked figures who made everything else possible.