{"id":55618,"date":"2018-02-22T05:03:34","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T05:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=55618"},"modified":"2018-02-22T05:03:53","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T05:03:53","slug":"jeffersons-daughters-three-sisters-white-and-black-in-a-young-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=55618","title":{"rendered":"Jefferson’s Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jefferson’s Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Ballantine Books
\n2018-01-30
\n448 pages
\n6.3 x 1.4 x 9.5 inches
\nHardcover ISBN: 978-1101886243
\nPaperback ISBN: 978-0525524380<\/p>\n

Catherine Kerrison<\/strong><\/a>, Associate Professor of History
\nVillanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The remarkable untold story of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s<\/a> three daughters\u2014two white and free, one black and enslaved\u2014and the divergent paths they forged in a newly independent America<\/em><\/p>\n

Thomas Jefferson<\/a> had three daughters: Martha<\/a> and Maria<\/a> by his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson<\/a>, and Harriet<\/a> by his slave Sally Hemings<\/a>. In Jefferson\u2019s Daughters<\/em>, Catherine Kerrison, a scholar of early American and women\u2019s history, recounts the remarkable journey of these three women\u2014and how their struggle to define themselves reflects both the possibilities and the limitations that resulted from the American Revolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although the three women shared a father, the similarities end there. Martha and Maria received a fine convent school education while they lived with their father during his diplomatic posting in Paris<\/a>\u2014a hothouse of intellectual ferment whose celebrated salonni\u00e8res<\/a> are vividly brought to life in Kerrison\u2019s narrative. Once they returned home, however, the sisters found their options limited by the laws and customs of early America.<\/p>\n

Harriet Hemings<\/a> followed a different path. She escaped slavery\u2014apparently with the assistance of Jefferson himself. Leaving Monticello<\/a> behind, she boarded a coach and set off for a decidedly uncertain future.<\/p>\n

For this groundbreaking triple biography, Kerrison has uncovered never-before-published documents written by the Jefferson sisters when they were in their teens, as well as letters written by members of the Jefferson and Hemings families. She has interviewed Hemings family descendants (and, with their cooperation, initiated DNA testing<\/a>) and searched for descendants of Harriet Hemings.<\/p>\n

The eventful lives of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s daughters provide a unique vantage point from which to examine the complicated patrimony of the American Revolution itself. The richly interwoven story of these three strong women and their fight to shape their own destinies sheds new light on the ongoing movement toward human rights in America\u2014and on the personal and political legacy of one of our most controversial Founding Fathers<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The remarkable untold story of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s three daughters\u2014two white and free, one black and enslaved\u2014and the divergent paths they forged in a newly independent America<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1245,11,459,8,17,6462,6940,20,693,25],"tags":[27964,27965,24007,27967,24991,24992,27966,27968,918,477],"class_list":["post-55618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biography","category-books","category-history","category-media-archive","category-monographs","category-passing-2","category-slavery","category-usa","category-virginia","category-women","tag-ballantine-books","tag-catherine-kerrison","tag-harriet-hemings","tag-maria-jefferson","tag-martha-jefferson","tag-martha-jefferson-randolph","tag-martha-wayles-jefferson","tag-mary-jefferson-eppes","tag-sally-hemings","tag-thomas-jefferson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55618"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55621,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55618\/revisions\/55621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}