Research Catalog

The widow Washington : the life of Mary Washington

Title
The widow Washington : the life of Mary Washington / Martha Saxton.
Author
Saxton, Martha
Publication
  • New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.
  • ©2019

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Book/textUse in library JFE 19-7821Schwarzman Building - Milstein Division Room 121

Details

Subject
  • Washington, Mary Ball, 1708-1789
  • Washington, George, 1732-1799 > Family
  • Mothers of presidents > United States > Biography
  • Widows > United States > Biography
  • Slaveholders > Virginia > Biography
  • Virginia > History > Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
  • United States > History > Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
  • United States > History > Revolution, 1775-1783
Genre/Form
  • Biography.
  • History.
  • Biographies.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages [297]-340) and index.
Contents
Mary Ball Washington : like mother, like son -- A child in the Chesapeake -- A generation of orphans -- Bruising the small spirit -- Mary, her kin, and her books -- Mary Ball, Augustine Washington, and Matthew Hale -- Wife and mother -- People and property at the Ferry Farm -- As sparks fly upward -- The widow Washington -- Single mother -- Mary's stewardship : scraping by -- Midcentury : a wedding, a murder, a family death -- Mary and George's Seven Years War -- Between the wars : kin, consumption, conflict -- The Revolution : a family affair -- The endless Revolution : wartime virtue, wartime woe -- Mary's war ends -- "You must one day fade" -- Epilogue: An uneasy afterlife.
Call Number
JFE 19-7821
ISBN
  • 9780809097012
  • 080909701X
LCCN
2018056295
OCLC
1081339249
Author
Saxton, Martha, author.
Title
The widow Washington : the life of Mary Washington / Martha Saxton.
Publisher
New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.
Copyright Date
©2019
Edition
First edition.
Description
xix, 360 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages [297]-340) and index.
Summary
"Biography of Mary Ball Washington, George Washington's mother. Places her life as an orphan, a young wife in rural Virginia, a slaveholder, a widow, and mother to the first president in the context of the changing economic circumstances and cultural values of colonial Virginia and a young nation"-- Provided by publisher.
Her son's biographers often paint her as self-centered and crude, a trial and an obstacle to her oldest child. Yet Mary Ball Washington had a greater impact on George than mothers of that time and place usually had on their sons, and she imbued him with many of the moral and religious principles by which he lived. The daughter of a wealthy planter and a formerly indentured servant, Mary was orphaned young and grew up working hard, practicing frugality and piety. She married planter Augustine Washington, had five children before his death eleven years later, and as a widow was deprived of most of her late husband's properties. Saxton tells the story of Mary's long, arduous life on its own terms, and not as her son's satellite. -- adapted from jacket
Chronological Term
1600-1775
Research Call Number
JFE 19-7821
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