Book review: ‘First Ladies of the Republic’

Colorado, Dr. Jeanne Abrams is best known as a historian and archivist with Jewish expertise, most notably as director of DU’s Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society and Ira M. Beck Archives. In more recent years, she has moved her scholarship beyond her Jewish roots into American history in general. Her 2013 book, Revolutionary Medicine, which focused on health care in the era of the American Revolution, was a transition between her earlier writings on Colorado’s largely Jewish operated tuberculosis care institutions and the Revolutionary period. With First Ladies of the Republic, Abrams has moved totally into the latter sphere and proves herself an insightful and engaging historical writer. She focuses on America’s first three first ladies — noting, however, that the term wasn’t actually used […]