As the bold fathers of the American Revolution left behind their private lives t
o become public nation-builders, what happened to their families? Surprisingly,
no previous book has ever explored how family life shaped the political careers
of America's great Founding Fathers-men like George Mason, Patrick Henry, George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. In this original and intimate
portrait, historian Lorri Glover brings to life the vexing, joyful, arduous, and
sometimes tragic experiences of the architects of the American Republic who, wh
ile building a nation, were also raising families. The costs and consequences fo
r the families of these Virginia leaders were great, Glover discovers: the Revol
ution remade family life no less than it reinvented political institutions.
