Catherine Allgor

This was a well-documented, well-researched book. I did not actually finish the book as it was a book club selection and I was on a deadline. I found that PBS has a documentary based on this book and it is available through NetFilx, so I watched the movie in case I did not get the book finished before our discussion. After watching the movie I lost my motivation to finish the book.

I enjoyed learning about Dolley and the influence she had on the 'office' of first lady. It was interesting to see that politics has not changed much in 200 years, with partisanship being just as extreme in the early 1800s. It was also interested to read about Dolley's relationship with her wayward son. However, this was a difficult book to read. While the author was very knowledgeable and had obviously done her research, she did not know how to write for a lay person. There was a little too much detail for anyone other than a professional historian and maybe even for them. (Do we really need to know how many sheets of TP James Madison used?) Also, she chose to use uncommon, multisyllabic words when a common word would have conveyed the information just fine. For example, this sentence found on page 75, “American social circumstances demanded more sangfroid than ever imagined by any European courtesy book.”

I had to stop and look up 'sangfroid' to learn it means 'coolness of mind; calmness; composure'. I may have finished the book if I hadn't has to stop and look up so many words. But I guess I can say I added to my vocabulary.

If you are a historian, you may enjoy this book. If you are a more casual reader, there are probably other Dolley Madison biographies you may want to look at instead.… (mais)

I really enjoyed this biography. I've found that many biographies of women tend to spend more time talking about the woman's famous husband than the actual woman's life and contributions. Allgor does a very good job of sticking to Dolley Madison's story. I knew very little about Dolley Madison so this was an interesting read. One thing that made her story a little less enjoyable for me was that Dolley was a master of creating a public persona (she basically created the role of First Lady as we think of it today). I think it's a little hard to get past that and down to what she was "really like". Because of that I felt a bit distant from the subject, but it was a very interesting and well-written book.… (mais)

In this elegant biography, award-winning historian Allgor (Parlor Politics) makes the case that not only was Dolley Madison incredibly popular with the American people—"Everybody loves Mrs. Madison" Henry Clay once said—the wife of America's fourth president was also a "master politician." Dolley was a skilled hostess, and everyone in Washington coveted an invitation to her table. She knew the etiquette of polite society and used it to political advantage. She worked as a de facto campaign manager when her husband sought the presidency, inventing fictive kin and feigning family connections to potential allies. Even her interior decorating was politically savvy: though she favored French decor at home in Virginia, she chose American-made furniture for the White House. There's no anachronism here: Allgor doesn't turn Dolley into a proto-feminist, nor the marriage—which was respectful and deeply affectionate—into a bastion of egalitarianism. Yet when Allgor describes the Madisons as "political partner[s]," one can't help thinking of the Clintons. The erudition and charm of this biography are rivaled only by that of its subject, which makes it disappointing that the decades after Madison's presidency are dispatched in a skimpy two chapters and epilogue.… (mais)