Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

In 1785, Benjamin Franklin returned from Europe and was welcomed by an adoring public. His sister, Jane, had hoped that they might retire together, to spend their later years in each other’s company. However, within a month Benjamin was elected president of Pennsylvania, and she wrote, rather acidly, “I may as well content myself at this distance with the hopes of receiving once in a while a kind letter from you” (200). Her assumption proved accurate as they never saw each other again. Benjamin’s daughter, Sally Bache, did see her father more. However, she also had to spend a great deal of time greeting, feeding, and generally attending to the many visitors who came to see the illustrious Benjamin Franklin, while still taking care of her young family. Although Benjamin had been absent from her life for nine years, Sally even had to share his affections with his surrogate daughter and her children, whom he brought over from England to live in his home.

Jane and Sally were not the only women disappointed by a Founding Father. As the Founders worked on the new Constitution, Mercy Otis Warren returned to public politics to criticize their approach to government. Indeed, even the Constitutional Convention offended her because it took place behind closed doors with limited information available to the public, causing her to question how much those involved were accountable to the people. When the Founders tried to get the Constitution ratified, she stepped up her objections, publishing a pamphlet that aimed to convince states not to authorize the document. She questioned whether a centralized government was appropriate for such a vast and diverse land and feared that the new government would be an oligarchy, giving too much power to too few people and failing to provide adequate means for the public “to reject their decisions, to call for a revision of their conduct, to depute others in their room” (221).

Despite her objections, once the states ratified and the Constitution passed into law in 1788, Warren accepted it without complaint, and the following year her old friends and correspondents George Washington and John Adams were elected as the first President and Vice President, respectively. Unlike Warren, who returned to public life voluntarily, Martha Washington would soon find her relaxed private life at Mount Vernon turned upside down as she once more became a public figure.

Roberts also offers the story of a woman who provides a far more scandalous example of “public life” and a vision of American womanhood far removed from that of the dutiful and dedicated wives and mothers celebrated so far. Anne Cary Randolph is connected to this overall narrative because, in 1809, she married Gouverneur Morris, who crafted the decisions of the Constitutional Convention into the tightly worded document itself. Promiscuous, hedonistic, and often linked to married women, Morris was not entirely a stranger to controversy and scandal. However, many were appalled when he married Anne as she had an incredibly scandalous history. In 1790, ejected from her family home by her father’s young bride, the 16-year-old Anne moved in with her sister Judith and their cousin, Judith’s husband, Richard Randolph, on their plantation, which was named “Bizarre.” Richard’s brother Theodorick also moved to the plantation because he was courting Anne. However, Richard and Theodorick’s brother John was upset because he wished to marry Anne, and Richard was himself secretly in love with her.

Theodorick died of Tuberculosis in 1792, and shortly after people began to worry that Anne had put on weight and seemed depressed. Later, while visiting another cousin’s plantation, Anne woke the hosts by screaming, but Richard barred everyone from entering the room to investigate. Rumors spread that the plantation slaves had found a dead baby, with many concluding that Anne and Richard had been having an affair and that she had borne his child and then compelled him to kill it. Richard stood trial, during which numerous Randolph cousins suggested that Richard and Anne were overly familiar. However, Judith and John both testified that Richard and Anne were innocent, and Richard was acquitted. Anne, Judith, and Richard returned to Bizarre, where, three years later, Richard died suddenly of unknown causes.

Life on the plantation grew strained as Judith began to wonder if the rumors were true, and John, whom Anne had once rejected and who was now a member of Congress, sided with Judith and ejected Anne from the property. Anne left Virginia, but scandal followed her, as John Randolph spread rumors that, among other things, she had murdered Richard and become the mistress of one of Bizarre’s slaves (212). Unable to find work and with no resources of her own, Anne eventually sought out Gouverneur Morris, whom she had met when she was a child. He took her on as a housekeeper and then married her later the same year. She survived further rumors and attacks from Morris’s relatives and from an increasingly vicious John Randolph, and after Morris’s death, she managed his estate until their son came of age, despite further attempts from his family to undermine her control.

As George Washington traveled up to New York, great celebrations took place everywhere he passed. On Inauguration Day, proceedings were without pomp, but when Martha arrived in New York three weeks later, they held a ball at which all the women held ivory fans depicting George’s face (229). This decision represents some of the tensions that were at play around procedure and protocol, with considerable effort made to distance the new nation from the pageantry of the European monarchical courts while still maintaining dignity and authority. Politicians and advisors debated numerous matters, including whom and how Martha would entertain and how she would present herself as First Lady.

Indeed, Martha was under considerable pressure to set the tone of the proceedings and set an example for others. Again, there was a certain tension around how she should appear and behave. Martha was expected to present a dignified image, elegantly attired with her hair “set and dressed every day,” sporting “a set of teeth [… made] bigger and thicker in front and a small matter longer” (231). At the same time, she had to avoid a sense of “unrepublican” decadence, appearing at key events in American homespun. To avoid any accusations of prejudice or preferential treatment, she was not allowed to accept private visitors. Nevertheless, she had to host numerous receptions and events, as well as calling on and receiving calls from other prominent women, all while maintaining a persona that was dignified yet modest, distinguished but welcoming. These events served a political purpose, providing enough formality for visiting diplomats while also maintaining an appropriately republican openness and accessibility (234), as did Martha’s habit of receiving and welcoming Revolutionary War veterans, which helped to keep them amiable, especially after Congress declined to pay them back pay for their service (264). Always in the public eye and carrying a great many restrictive responsibilities, Martha found life as First Lady grueling and often extremely dull, and on several occasions she complained that she was “more like a state prisoner than anything else” (235).

Abigail Adams also found cause to complain about her life married to a prominent politician, observing that “this country had ‘obliged me to more sacrifices than any other woman in the country’” (274), although, as throughout her marriage, she viewed this situation as her duty and as a patriotic sacrifice that she was willing to make. This is not to say that she always did so gracefully: She complained not only about her sacrifices but also about the amount of socializing that was expected of her. Like Martha Washington, she was expected to both host and attend parties and gatherings. Again, however, these events had an important political role to play, serving “a civilizing purpose” by providing a space in which opposing politicians were forced by propriety to interact politely and respectfully (260). Abigail later found even more sacrifices and socializing awaiting her when John became President and she took on the role of First Lady, a position that required her to at least attempt to watch her tongue and avoid voicing her bold, outspoken political views.

Despite her sacrifices, Abigail was delighted that John became President. She was also pleased with growing shifts in education for women, a cause for which she had long been a passionate advocate. The war had shown that women could take on great responsibilities and fill many roles, helping to shift engrained attitudes about women’s abilities and potential. Many now felt that, with formal education, women could serve their country even more fully, and periodicals began to publish writing by women and articles about the issue. Mercy Otis Warren even published a book under her own name for the first time, releasing a collection of poetry that won the praise and endorsement of George Washington and Mercy’s other prominent political friends. The political positions behind this shift were varied, ranging from an early or proto-feminism to the belief that educated mothers would do a better job of raising their sons to be fine upstanding Americans. Nevertheless, it was a profound development, marking a growing recognition of women’s abilities and their contribution to the birth of a nation, as well as serving as a starting point for a significant shift in attitudes towards women’s education and women’s rights in America.