Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America
    Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America
    Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America
    Audiobook17 hours

    Jefferson's Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America

    Written by Catherine Kerrison

    Narrated by Tavia Gilbert

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    The remarkable untold story of Thomas Jefferson’s three daughters—two white and free, one black and enslaved—and the divergent paths they forged in a newly independent America
     
    FINALIST FOR THE GEORGE WASHINGTON PRIZE • “Beautifully written . . . To a nuanced study of Jefferson’s two white daughters, Martha and Maria, [Kerrison] innovatively adds a discussion of his only enslaved daughter, Harriet Hemings.”—The New York Times Book Review

    Thomas Jefferson had three daughters: Martha and Maria by his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson, and Harriet by his slave Sally Hemings. 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. Once they returned home, however, the sisters found their options limited by the laws and customs of early America. Harriet Hemings followed a different path. She escaped slavery—apparently with the assistance of Jefferson himself. Leaving Monticello behind, she boarded a coach and set off for a decidedly uncertain future.
     
    For this groundbreaking triple biography, history scholar Catherine Kerrison has uncovered never-before-published documents written by the Jefferson sisters, as well as letters written by members of the Jefferson and Hemings families. The richly interwoven stories of these strong women and their fight to shape their own destinies shed new light on issues of race and gender that are still relevant today—and on the legacy of one of our most controversial Founding Fathers.
     
    Praise for Jefferson’s Daughters
     
    “A fascinating glimpse of where we have been as a nation . . . Catherine Kerrison tells us the stories of three of Thomas Jefferson’s children, who, due to their gender and race, lived lives whose most intimate details are lost to time.”—USA Today

    “A valuable addition to the history of Revolutionary-era America.”—The Boston Globe

    “A thought-provoking nonfiction narrative that reads like a novel.”—BookPage
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
    Release dateJan 30, 2018
    ISBN9780525492436
    Author

    Catherine Kerrison

    CATHERINE KERRISON is a professor of history at Villanova University. She is author of Jefferson’s Daughters: Three Sisters, White and Black, in a Young America and Claiming the Pen: Women and Intellectual Life in the Early American South.

    Related to Jefferson's Daughters

    Related audiobooks

    Women's Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      The Convict

      Jul 10, 2020

      The Convict
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Portrait Of A Marriage

      May 26, 2023

      Portrait Of A Marriage
      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Girls Like You

      Sep 5, 2023

      Girls Like You
      17 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      19th Amendment: The Six-week 'Brawl' That Won Women The Vote

      Aug 3, 2020

      The final ratification battle over women’s right to vote, in Tennessee, was deeply fraught – and it holds lessons for today.

      15 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      In 'Martyr!,' An Endless Quest For Purpose In A World That Can Be Cruel And Uncaring

      Jan 29, 2024

      Engaging and wildly entertaining, Kaveh Akbar's debut novel will undoubtedly be considered one of the best of the year because it focuses on very specific stories while discussing universal feelings.

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Spirited Sips

      Sep 26, 2023

      Spirited Sips
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Lineal Gaps

      Apr 6, 2021

      Lineal Gaps
      15 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Plan of ACTION

      Oct 3, 2023

      Plan of ACTION
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Happy Endings

      Sep 1, 2023

      Happy Endings
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books

      Jul 25, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Original Nature Boy

      May 24, 2023

      The Original Nature Boy
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Why Does Anyone Care About the Nobel Prize?

      Oct 15, 2024

      “Just go to sleep,” Martin Chalfie’s wife told him late one October night in 2008. Chalfie, a Columbia University chemist, had co-authored an influential paper describing a new method for studying cells with green fluorescent protein, and he was anxi

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Carnival Confections

      Nov 30, 2021

      Carnival Confections
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Force of Nature

      Jun 4, 2018

      Force of Nature
      16 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Carnal Crimes

      Sep 24, 2019

      Carnal Crimes
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      ‘Collections of Human Bones'

      Aug 15, 2023

      ‘Collections of Human Bones'
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Legacy Of Hope And Glory

      Jun 9, 2021

      DESPITE my birthplace in the Mississippi Delta and my early years in schools whose teachers tried hard to educate the children in the poorest state in the Union, I reckon I had a head start when I arrived in Suffolk as the bride of a farmer. White ch

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      'A View Of The Empire At Sunset' Uses Author Jean Rhys To Explore 'Otherness'

      Jun 13, 2018

      Novelist Caryl Phillips uses the life of author Jean Rhys to return to once again explore themes of racism and colonialism.

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Cooper’s Frontier Adventures

      Sep 1, 2024

      Cooper’s Frontier Adventures
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Lark Rise ascending

      Sep 20, 2023

      Lark Rise ascending
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Warning To The Fortean

      Jul 14, 2022

      A Warning To The Fortean
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Aaron Burr in Exile

      Jun 3, 2019

      IN JUNE 1808, AS HE LEFT North America for the one and only time in his life, Aaron Burr recorded the briefest of notes for his adored daughter, Theodosia. “Fair winds,” the founding father and former vice president wrote before clambering aboard a p

      16 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Over The Sea To Skye

      Sep 21, 2022

      Over The Sea To Skye
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Jefferson's Daughters

    4/5

    28 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Author Catherine Kerrison does an excellent job of showing attitudes towards gender and race at the time Thomas Jefferson‘s daughters were living. His two white daughters received excellent educations for females at that time, and were considered privileged. Another daughter Harriet, by his slave Sally Hemings, escaped Virginia -- probably with Jefferson's help. She passed for white, probably living and raising a family in Washington DC, & we don‘t know her fate.

      All three daughters had such potential but were restricted by attitudes towards race and gender, especially Harriet. Maybe Harriet's descendants will be revealed someday.

      I highly recommend this book. It‘s non-fiction (which I want) but I was initially fooled by its cover design, which makes it look like historic fiction.
    • 4/5
      A very revealing and well-researched account of the lives of Thomas Jefferson's descendants. I found it eye-opening about the realities of white privilege and "color of skin" then and now. Focusing on Jefferson's three daughters, Martha, Maria and Harriet, the book shows the importance of racial purity...then and now! The richest chapter was at the end...Legacy. His daughter Harriet, chose to leave her family and her identity to live a life of "passing" for herself and her children. She is invisible to us as Jefferson's daughter. As recently as 2002 the Montecello Association denied the rights of burial in the Montecello graveyard to Heming descendants of Jefferson. Shame on us.
    • 5/5
      An interesting detailed look at both Jefferson’s white daughters and black daughters. Now only was the contrast in their relationships with Jefferson but how he viewed women and their place in society. What really impressed me was how much work it was for the author to find information especially about Harriet.
    • 4/5
      A worth-your-time read about the daughters of America's 3rd President, Thomas Jefferson. Known for his Declaration of Independence and that "all men are created equal", Jefferson nonetheless was still a slave owner and task master. More compassionate than most, he was a product of his Virginian times - Black people were not intellectually equal and should not be free.
      That being said, he didn't think twice about taking Sally Hemings as his sex partner and fathering 6 children with her, several which made it to adulthood, including Harriet who managed to be unofficially set free on her 21st birthday.

      Maria Jefferson Eppes married for love, but died from the after effects of childbirth at age 25. Martha Jefferson Randolph, Paris educated, raised 12 children under Jefferson's watchful eyes. Never quite fully actualized, Martha did the best she could, as a product of the times that did not value the intellect of women.