When introverted Jane Appleton and charismatic Franklin Pierce first met, they fell in love immediately, despite being complete opposites. Jane’s pious family vetoed any relationship between them, and it was eight years before they finally married. Their life together was a loving though often difficult one, as frail Jane adapted to the uncertainties of political life that climaxed in ostensible deceit and tragedy just prior to Franklin’s presidency. This book offers insight into the dynasty to which Jane belonged and profiles earlier generations, providing a wider perception of her family’s history. Through family letters and anecdotes, it details Jane’s complex life and defines the social and health features of the era. Aspects of Jane’s childhood that may have accounted for her melancholic nature and inhibitions are revealed. This book also explores the truths behind the many myths surrounding this tragic first lady.

Presents a biography of Jane Means Appleton Pierce

Jane Means Appleton Pierce's hopes of being a happy wife and mother were shattered by the deaths of her three sons, from which she would never recover.

Contains lineage charts showing the ancestries of the 14th president of the United States, Franklin Pierce (1804-1869), and his wife Jane Means Appleton (1806-1863). Includes a chronology of events in the history of the United States of America beginning with the birth of Christopher Columbus in 1451 to the taking of the 20th census of the U.S.A. in 1980.

The genial but troubled New Englander whose single-minded partisan loyalties inflamed the nation's simmering battle over slavery Charming and handsome, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was drafted to break the deadlock of the 1852 Democratic convention. Though he seized the White House in a landslide against the imploding Whig Party, he proved a dismal failure in office. Michael F. Holt, a leading historian of nineteenth-century partisan politics, argues that in the wake of the Whig collapse, Pierce was consumed by an obsessive drive to unify his splintering party rather than the roiling country. He soon began to overreach. Word leaked that Pierce wanted Spain to sell the slave-owning island of Cuba to the United States, rousing sectional divisions. Then he supported repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which limited the expansion of slavery in the west. Violence broke out, and "Bleeding Kansas" spurred the formation of the Republican Party. By the end of his term, Pierce's beloved party had ruptured, and he lost the nomination to James Buchanan. In this incisive account, Holt shows how a flawed leader, so dedicated to his party and ill-suited for the presidency, hastened the approach of the Civil War.

This volume presents thirty-nine interpretive biographical essays on all first ladies, from Martha Washington to America's newest First Lady, Laura Bush. This new edition contains updated material on all the living First Ladies and updated bibliographies for each entry, as well as a portrait of the newest First Lady.