Bold, talented, and ambitious, Jessie Benton Fremont was one of Victorian America's most controversial women. As the daughter of powerful Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and the wife of John Charles Fremont - western explorer, presidential candidate, and Civil War general - she not only witnessed but struggled to influence many of the major events of her time. Despite the restrictions she faced as a woman, she managed to carve out a vital role for herself as a writer, dedicated abolitionist, and secretary and other self to her mercurial husband. She collaborated on his best-selling exploration reports, served as his behind-the-scenes political advisor and chief Civil War aide, and worked as a lobbyist for Arizona mining interests. In The Letters of Jessie Benton Fremont, Pamela Herr and Mary Lee Spence create a compelling portrait of this remarkable woman. They supplement their collection of 271 fully annotated letters, selected from 800 they uncovered, with an elegant introduction and seven authoritative chapter essays that elucidate the significant periods of her life. The correspondents range from intimate friends like Elizabeth Blair Lee to public figures like Horace Greeley, Abraham Lincoln, Dorothea Dix, John Greenleaf Whittier, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, William T. Sherman, and Theodore Roosevelt. Readers interested in women's studies, the westward movement, the Civil War, and the Gilded Age will find a rich source in The Letters of Jessie Benton Fremont.

Winner of the Barondess/Lincoln Award from The Civil War Round Table of New York “Fascinating reading. . .this book eerily reflects some of today’s key issues.” – The New York Times Book Review From an award-winning historian, an engrossing look at how Abraham Lincoln grappled with the challenges of leadership in an unruly democracy An awkward first meeting with U.S. Army officers, on the eve of the Civil War. A conversation on the White House portico with a young cavalry sergeant who was a fiercely dedicated abolitionist. A tense exchange on a navy ship with a Confederate editor and businessman. In this eye-opening book, Elizabeth Brown Pryor examines six intriguing, mostly unknown encounters that Abraham Lincoln had with his constituents. Taken together, they reveal his character and opinions in unexpected ways, illustrating his difficulties in managing a republic and creating a presidency. Pryor probes both the political demons that Lincoln battled in his ambitious exercise of power and the demons that arose from the very nature of democracy itself: the clamorous diversity of the populace, with its outspoken demands. She explores the trouble Lincoln sometimes had in communicating and in juggling the multiple concerns that make up being a political leader; how conflicted he was over the problem of emancipation; and the misperceptions Lincoln and the South held about each other. Pryor also provides a fascinating discussion of Lincoln’s fondness for storytelling and how he used his skills as a raconteur to enhance both his personal and political power. Based on scrupulous research that draws on hundreds of eyewitness letters, diaries, and newspaper excerpts, Six Encounters with Lincoln offers a fresh portrait of Lincoln as the beleaguered politician who was not especially popular with the people he needed to govern with, and who had to deal with the many critics, naysayers, and dilemmas he faced without always knowing the right answer. What it shows most clearly is that greatness was not simply laid on Lincoln’s shoulders like a mantle, but was won in fits and starts.

Acclaimed as groundbreaking since its publication, Women and the Republican Party, 1854-1924 explores the forces that propelled women to partisan activism in an era of widespread disfranchisement and provides a new perspective on how women fashioned their political strategies and identities before and after 1920. Melanie Susan Gustafson examines women's partisan history against the backdrop of women's political culture. Contesting the accepted notion that women were uninvolved in political parties before gaining the vote, Gustafson reveals the length and depth of women's partisan activism between the founding of the Republican Party, whose abolitionist agenda captured the loyalty of many women, and the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Her account also looks at the complex interplay of partisan and nonpartisan activity; the fierce debates among women about how to best use their influence; the ebb and flow of enthusiasm for women's participation; and the third parties that fused the civic world of reform organizations with the electoral world of voting and legislation.