Synopses & Reviews
The Roosevelt name conjures up images of powerful Presidents and dashing men of high society. But few people know much about the extraordinary network of women that held the Roosevelt clan together through war, scandal, and disease. In The Roosevelt Women, Betty Boyd Caroli weaves together stories culled from a rich store of letters, memoirs, and interviews to chronicle nine extraordinary Roosevelt women across a century and a half of turbulent history.She examines the Roosevelt women as mothers, daughters, wives, and, beyond that, as world travelers, authors, campaigners, and socialites—in short, as themselves. She reveals how they demonstrated the energy and intellectual curiosity that defined their famous family, as well as the roles they played in the intrigues, scandals, and accomplishments that were hallmarks of the Roosevelt clan. From the much maligned Sara Delano (who sired Franklin and by turns terrified and supported Eleanor) to Theodore’s irrepressible daughter, Alice (”I can either rule the country or control Alice,” Teddy once said) to the beloved Bamie, who was the only mother Alice ever knew, and the model of everything she never was in life, to the exceptionally beautiful but ultimately overwhelmed Mittie, Theodore’s mother, The Roosevelt Women is an intricate portrait of bold and talented women, a grand tale of both unbearable tragedies and triumphant achievements.
Synopsis
Like the Kennedys, the Roosevelts have continued to fascinate the American public long past their glory days in American government and business. But most people are not familiar with the many intriguing and powerful women in the Roosevelt family tree other than Eleanor Roosevelt. Now one of the top experts on Presidential women puts the spotlight on Roosevelt wives and matriarchs ranging from Teddy Roosevelt's mother to the current generation.
Betty Caroli probes both the personal and public lives of women who were much more than just background figures in the lives of their center-stage husbands and sons. She reveals how these women expressed the energy and satisfied the intellectual curiosity that defined their famous families. While exploring these women's traditional roles as wives and mothers, the book also moves beyond them to consider their exploits as adventurers, authors, and campaigners. Caroli thoroughly explores the roles they played in the intrigue and risk, scandal and propriety, and humor and accomplishment that were hallmarks of the Roosevelt clan.
Table of Contents
Martha "Mittie" Bulloch Roosevelt (1835-1884) -- Anna "Bamie" Roosevelt Cowles (1855-1931) -- Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (1861-1933) -- Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt (1861-1948) and Sara Delano Roosevelt (1854-1941) -- Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt (1884-1962) -- Corinne Robinson Alsop (1886-1971) -- Ethel Carow Roosevelt Derby (1891-1977) -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980).