The Women Who Shaped Our Nation

In Founding Mothers, Cokie Roberts paid homage to the heroic women whose patriotism and sacrifice helped create a new nation. Now the number one New York Times bestselling author and renowned political commentator—praised in USA Today as a "custodian of time-honored values"—continues the story of early America's influential women with Ladies of Liberty. In her "delightfully intimate and confiding" style (Publishers Weekly), Roberts presents a colorful blend of biographical portraits and behind-the-scenes vignettes chronicling women's public roles and private responsibilities.

Recounted with the insight and humor of an expert storyteller and drawing on personal correspondence, private journals, and other primary sources—many of them previously unpublished—Roberts brings to life the extraordinary accomplishments of women who laid the groundwork for a better society. Almost every quotation here is written by a woman, to a woman, or about a woman. From first ladies to freethinkers, educators to explorers, this exceptional group includes Abigail Adams, Margaret Bayard Smith, Martha Jefferson, Dolley Madison, Elizabeth Monroe, Louisa Catherine Adams, Eliza Hamilton, Theodosia Burr, Rebecca Gratz, Louisa Livingston, Rosalie Calvert, Sacajawea, and others. In a much-needed addition to the shelves of Founding Father literature, Roberts sheds new light on the generation of heroines, reformers, and visionaries who helped shape our nation, giving these ladies of liberty the recognition they so greatly deserve.

About the Author

Cokie Roberts serves as a senior news analyst for NPR, where she was the congressional correspondent for more than ten years. In addition to her work for NPR, Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News, serving as an on-air analyst for the network.

Roberts has won numerous awards at NPR, including the highest honor in public radio, the Edward R. Murrow Award. She was also the first broadcast journalist to win the highly prestigious Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress. Roberts is the recipient of numerous other broadcasting awards, including a 1991 Emmy for her contribution to the ABC News special, "Who is Ross Perot?"

Roberts is also the author of the bestselling We Are Our Mother’s Daughters as well as Founding Mothers, the companion volume to Ladies of Liberty. A mother of two and grandmother of six, she lives with her husband in Bethesda, Maryland.