Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days

Geraldine Brooks

• Publisher: Paeroa House
• Year: 2026
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781779798558
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days By Geraldine Brooks They wore silk and homespun. They prayed in candlelit rooms and argued in parlors that smelled of woodsmoke and ambition. They raised sons who became revolutionaries and daughters who became the quiet backbone of a nation still learning to stand. And yet, for too long, history looked right past them. Geraldine Brooks restores their names, their voices, and their stories in this vivid and deeply researched portrait of the women who shaped colonial America from its earliest, most fragile beginnings. These were not footnotes. These were the women history forgot to remember. Brooks brings remarkable intimacy and narrative force to her subjects, drawing readers into a world where survival itself required extraordinary courage. From the drawing rooms of Boston to the frontier edges of a wilderness that offered no mercy, the women of colonial America navigated war, religious persecution, economic hardship, and social constraint with a resilience that commands awe across the centuries. Brooks does not simply recount their lives, she resurrects them. Each woman emerges as fully human, shaped by the tensions of her time, driven by love, grief, faith, and an unyielding desire to matter in a world that rarely offered women the permission to do so. The atmosphere is immersive and the storytelling pulls with a gravitational force that makes these centuries-old lives feel startlingly immediate. For readers who believe that history is most powerful when experienced through the lives of those who actually lived it, this book is an essential and deeply rewarding journey. It challenges comfortable assumptions about who built America, who bore its costs, and who deserves to be remembered. Whether you are drawn to American history, to stories of women who refused to be erased, or simply to writing that makes the past feel alive and urgent, Brooks delivers something rare and lasting. Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days is a tribute to the strength that history overlooked and a reminder that the most compelling stories are often the ones we were never properly taught.

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• PREFACE.
• LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
• I.—ANNE HUTCHINSON, OF BOSTON, FOUNDER OF THE FIRST WOMAN’S CLUB IN AMERICA.
• II.—FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR, THE DEFENDER OF FORT LA TOUR.
• III.—MARGARET BRENT, THE WOMAN RULER OF MARYLAND.
• IV.—MADAM SARAH KNIGHT, A COLONIAL TRAVELLER.
• V.—ELIZA LUCAS, OF CHARLESTON, AFTERWARDS WIFE OF CHIEF-JUSTICE CHARLES PINCKNEY.
• VI.—MARTHA WASHINGTON, OF MOUNT VERNON, WIFE OF GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON.
• VII.—ABIGAIL ADAMS, WIFE OF JOHN ADAMS AND MOTHER OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
• VIII.—ELIZABETH SCHUYLER, OF ALBANY, AFTERWARDS WIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
• IX.—SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS, TWO QUAKER FRIENDS OF PHILADELPHIA.