Description
Professor Denver Brunsman will salute the founding mothers, sisters, and daughters who assisted George Washington in bringing to life the United States. Raised by a resilient single mother, Washington secured his status as an elite gentleman and political leader through his marriage to the wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis. As one of America’s few early leaders without a college education, Washington also carried a lifelong intellectual insecurity that made him open to counsel from women and men alike. Among the women from whom he sought advice and took inspiration were Philadelphia socialite Elizabeth Willing Powel, the African American poet Phillis Wheatley, and the English historian Catharine Macaulay Graham. He credited these and other strong women as “the best patriots” who made the American founding possible.
