The raising of a president : the mothers and fathers of our nation's leaders / Doug Wead.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wead, Doug.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Presidents--Family relationships--United States.

Presidents.

Presidents--Family relationships.

United States.

Physical Description:

ix, 512 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm

Edition:

First Atria Books hardcover edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Atria, [2005]

Summary:

The parents of the American presidents are often as remarkable as the children they raised, and certainly as disparate. Thomas Lincoln left nine-year-old Abraham and his sister to starve after their mother's death. As a volunteer midwife to poor, black tenant farm workers, Lillian Carter outraged her segregationist neighbors. Warren G. Harding's mother was accused of murder. Betty Jackson was an Irish beauty who juggled raising her fatherless sons and nursing soldiers fighting in the American Revolution. The correspondence and papers that Doug Wead unearthed during his years of research into "All the Presidents' Children clarified presidential parents' good points, as well as their flaws, which are often overlooked. A team of five psychologists assisted Wead in analyzing these findings, allowing him to shed further insight into how the presidents' destinies were shaped during childhood. "Raising a President includes stories of seemingly perfect parents who by accident or design raised high achievers. But more often than not, these are the stories of ordinary--often dysfunctional--families. Indeed, Wead determines that the circumstances that would destroy many children were often the very things that sparked their future greatness. These are the stories of the presidents' parents, but in a truer sense, they are the stories of the presidents themselves, from a perspective that is long overdue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [443]-509).

ISBN:

0743497260

OCLC:

57358429