Appropriately, then, Catherine Allgor, who teaches at the University of California, Riverside, begins A Perfect Union, her delightful and discerning biography, with that very scene. 'When Americans think of Dolley Madison, we tend to recall her legendary response to the British invasion of Washington in 1814: fleeing the White House ahead of the oncoming troops, carting off official papers and a portrait of George Washington.

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Allgor reveals that while Dolley's gender prevented her from openly playing politics, the very constraints of womanhood allowed her to construct an American ruling style and to achieve her husband's political goals, And the way that she did so-by emphasizing cooperation over coercion, building bridges instead of bunkers-has left us with not only an important story about our past but a model for a modern form of politics.Ī Perfect Union is both a portrait of an unsung founder of our democracy and an account of a little-explored time in our history. Why did her contemporaries adore and revere a lady so little known today? In A Perfect Union, historian Catherine Allgor explores the mystery of Dolley's fame and examines her subtle yet profound influence on American politics during the volatile era surrounding the War of 1812, when the republic was just taking shape. And yet, to most Americans, she's best known for saving the portrait of George Washington from a burning White House, or as the namesake for a line of ice cream products. By her death in 1849, Dolley was the most celebrated person in Washington. As the wife of the secretary of state, the charismatic, gracious, and ubiquitous Dolley was the primary architect of the social and political intricacies of the city as the president's wife, she dominated the Washington scene. Into this atmosphere of uncertainty, picking their way along Washington City's rutted, muddy streets, entered Dolley Madison and her husband, James.

When the roar of the American Revolution has subsided and the British forces had withdrawn, a new generation of American politicians was summoned to a half-built city on the Potomac to establish a national capital and a kind of government never seen before-a modern republic capable of ruling a vast continent.

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A Perfect Union by Catherine Allgor