• Founding Mothers

  • The Women Who Raised Our Nation
  • By: Cokie Roberts
  • Narrated by: Cokie Roberts
  • Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (413 ratings)

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Founding Mothers  By  cover art

Founding Mothers

By: Cokie Roberts
Narrated by: Cokie Roberts
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Publisher's summary

Cokie Roberts's #1 New York Times best seller We Are Our Mothers' Daughters examined the nature of women's roles throughout history and led USA Today to praise her as a "custodian of time-honored values." Her second best seller, From This Day Forward, written with her husband, Steve Roberts, described American marriages throughout history. Now Cokie returns with Founding Mothers, an intimate look at the passionate women whose tireless pursuits on behalf of their families and country proved just as crucial to the forging of a new nation as the rebellion that established it.

Roberts reveals the often surprising stories of these fascinating women, bringing to life the everyday trials of individuals like Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, Eliza Pinckney, Mary Bartlett, and Martha Washington, proving that without our exemplary women, the new country might have never survived.

Social history at its best, Founding Mothers unveils the determination, creative insight, and passion of the other patriots, the women who raised our nation. Cokie Roberts proves beyond doubt that like every generation of American women that has followed, the founding mothers used the unique gifts of their gender (courage, pluck, sadness, joy, energy, grace, sensitivity, and humor) to do what women do best, put one foot in front of the other in remarkable circumstances, and carry on.

©2004 Cokie Roberts (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
  • Abridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"Roberts's style is delightfully intimate and confiding....In addition to telling wonderful stories, Roberts also presents a very readable, serviceable account of politics (male and female) in early America. If only our standard history textbooks were written with such flair!" (Publishers Weekly)
"Roberts offers a much-needed look at the unheralded sacrifices and heroism of colonial women." (Booklist)
"She [Roberts] creates a strong, though perhaps overstated, case that without the patriotism of women on the home front, the Colonies would have lost the Revolutionary War....A series of entertaining minibiographies and engaging vignettes." (The New York Times Book Review)

What listeners say about Founding Mothers

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Founding Mothers

What a wonderful and inspiring book! Cokie Roberts compiles an assortment of touching stories about the women that witnessed the birth of our country, with whom we share history and spirit. Not only was the content tremendous, these womens' stories were interwoven flawlessly. I loved every minute of the audio book--especially hearing the author tell the stories herself. Clearly she put HER heart and soul in to this work and it shines through.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Interesting, but not engrossing

I found these stories interesting, but not compelling. What I found most interesting was the relationships between the ladies mentioned in this book. But, it was a little hard to follow, and I put it down several times. I enjoyed the author's reading. But I was not inspired to find out any more about these women, which was surprising to me, since I very much like American history.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Impressive

With the death of Cokie Roberts this week, I checked to see if I had read all of her books. I discovered I had missed this one.

The book is well written and researched. The problem is the lack of information on many of the women except for Abigail Adams. In this period women had no rights and few were educated so little information about them was recorded. The Adams’ family was an exception as they were educated, including the women, and were prolific letter writers and diary recorders. Some of the women covered in this book besides Abigail Adams are Dolly Madison, Martha Washington, Mary Barlett, Esther Burr and Sarah Livingston Jay. The book is a fast easy read and provides a glimpse of life in the 1700s.

The book is six hours and forty-three minutes. Cokie Roberts narrated her own book. Roberts was a pioneer television broadcaster journalist.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Boring

Waste of 6 1/2 hours. I listened to it while driving to work so it wasn't too much of a waste of time--except that I could have been listening to something more interesting.

Save your audiobook credits for something better.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Founding Mothers

Very interesting and informative. Nice to see the mothers being given credit for their part in history. Moving from one mother so quickly to another, especially many that I had never heard of, made the information hard to assimilate. I think I have already forgotten too many names. I probably should buy the book in order to refer back for the information. The anecdotes were interesting and, yes, even fun to read.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Founding Mothers

This was a refreshing perspective on the formation of our country. After reading "Benjamin Frankin", "John Adams", and "Alexander Hamilton" it was nice to read a book about the women behind the men.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Roberts Successful Again

For an individual who has lived her life with much hard-earned success, Roberts does it again with this heartfelt tribute to some of her hard working predecessors. Through her articulate reading it is conveyed to the reader that Roberts has developed an emotional interest in the amazing women she has brought to consciousness. Overall, what another great gift Roberts has shared with the nation.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • CH
  • 02-26-05

excellent!

She brings these ladies to life. Showcases their strength, dedication, and courage, inspite of the era of inequality they lived in.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Historic Women as historic WOMEN

First of all, what a treat to hear Cokie Roberts read her book herself. It is a cliche that behind great men stand great women. But these are not romanticized tales of women engaged in heroic deeds. It is one thing to strike out and create an independent life for yourself, it is something completely different to be placed in extreme circumstances by your spouse, with the expectation that you will cope (because that was what women did). As Cokie Roberts says when describing her research on the book, these few stories survive because these women were married to famous men. Women's stories were not considered very important or interesting. With these few examples, during colonial and revolutionary times, what must the lives of the thousands of other wives been like.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Founding Mothers

I found this book to be very intriquing and entertaining. Cokie Roberts did an excellent job researching and telling the story of so many of our beloved historic mothers!

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2 people found this helpful