The widow Washington : the life of Mary Washington / Martha Saxton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Saxton, Martha, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Washington, Mary Ball, 1708-1789.

Washington, Mary Ball.

Washington, George, 1732-1799--Family.

Washington, George.

Mothers of presidents--United States--Biography.

Mothers of presidents.

Widows--United States--Biography.

Widows.

Slaveholders--Virginia--Biography.

Slaveholders.

Virginia--History--Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.

Virginia.

United States--History--Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.

United States.

United States--History--Revolution, 1775-1783.

Washington, George, 1732-1799.

Families.

Genre:

Biographies.

History.

Physical Description:

xix, 360 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Life of Mary Washington

Place of Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019.

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

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

Mid-century: 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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-340) and index.

ISBN:

9780809097012

080909701X

9781250619518

1250619513

OCLC:

1081339249