Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
John C. Frémont, one of the United States’s leading explorers of the nineteenth century, was relatively unknown in 1842, when he commanded the first of his expeditions to the uncharted West. But in only a few years, he was one of the most acclaimed people of the age – known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States’s takeover of California from Mexico. He was not even 40 years old when Americans began naming mountains and towns after him. He had perfect timing, exploring the West just as it captured the nation’s attention. But the most important factor in his fame may have been the person who made it all possible: his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont.
Jessie, the daughter of a United States senator who was deeply involved in the West, provided her husband with entrée to the highest levels of government and media, and his career reached new heights only a few months after their elopement. During a time when women were allowed to make few choices for themselves, Jessie – who herself aspired to roles in exploration and politics – threw her skill and passion into promoting her husband. She worked to carefully edit and publicize his accounts of his travels, attracted talented young men to his circle, and lashed out at his enemies. She became her husband’s political adviser, as well as a power player in her own right. In 1856, the famous couple strategized as John became the first-ever presidential nominee of the newly established Republican Party.
With rare detail and in consummate style, Steve Inskeep tells the story of a couple whose joint ambitions and talents intertwined with those of the nascent United States itself. Taking advantage of expanding news media, aided by an increasingly literate public, the two linked their names to the three great national movements of the time—westward settlement, women’s rights, and opposition to slavery. Together, John and Jessie Frémont took parts in events that defined the country and gave rise to a new, more global America. Theirs is a surprisingly modern tale of ambition and fame; they lived in a time of social and technological disruption and divisive politics that foreshadowed our own. In Imperfect Union, as Inskeep navigates these deeply transformative years through Jessie and John’s own union, he reveals how the Frémonts’ adventures amount to nothing less than a tour of the early American soul.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Steve Inskeep. (2020). Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War. Penguin Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Steve Inskeep. 2020. Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War. Penguin Publishing Group.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Steve Inskeep, Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War. Penguin Publishing Group, 2020.
MLA Citation (style guide)Steve Inskeep. Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War. Penguin Publishing Group, 2020.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 1 | 0 |
There is 1 hold on this title.
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{96E3B740-A980-4B07-BA99-5DBDE965F998}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{96E3B740-A980-4B07-BA99-5DBDE965F998}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/96E/3B7/40/{96E3B740-A980-4B07-BA99-5DBDE965F998}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/96E/3B7/40/{96E3B740-A980-4B07-BA99-5DBDE965F998}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735224360
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B07S7M8T4T
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735224360
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Steve Inskeep
- title
- Imperfect Union
- dateAdded
- 2020-01-09T14:33:00-05:00
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=4754075
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- Imperfect Union How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West Invented Celebrity and Helped Cause the Civil War
- crossRefId
- 4754075
- subtitle
- How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War
- id
- 96e3b740-a980-4b07-ba99-5dbde965f998
- starRating
- 3.6
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: ImperfectUnion_9780735224360_4754075
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 49444803
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735224360
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 0
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 1/14/2020
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=96e3b740-a980-4b07-ba99-5dbde965f998&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: ImperfectUnion_9780735224360_4754075
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735224360
- type: ASIN
- value: B07S7M8T4T
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 1/14/2020
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=96e3b740-a980-4b07-ba99-5dbde965f998&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: ImperfectUnion_9780735224360_4754075
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735224360
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 1/14/2020
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=96e3b740-a980-4b07-ba99-5dbde965f998&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- keywords
- value: us history
- value: Biography
- value: autobiographies
- value: american history
- value: Civil War
- value: Adventure
- value: American west
- value: biographies
- value: John Fremont
- value: History
- value: union
- value: oregon trail
- value: adventure books
- value: civil war books
- value: gifts for dad
- value: history books
- value: historical biographies
- value: political books
- value: gifts for history buffs
- value: History book
- value: American history books
- value: NPR book
- value: dad gifts
- value: biographies of famous people
- value: history gifts
- value: us history books
- value: gifts for democrats
- value: political gifts
- value: history buff gifts
- value: history teacher gifts
- value: gifts for republicans
- value: historical gifts
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Inskeep, Steve
- name: Steve Inskeep
- imprint
- Penguin Books
- publishDate
- 2020-01-14T00:00:00-05:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Imperfect Union
- fullDescription
- Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Frémont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple
John C. Frémont, one of the United States’s leading explorers of the nineteenth century, was relatively unknown in 1842, when he commanded the first of his expeditions to the uncharted West. But in only a few years, he was one of the most acclaimed people of the age – known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States’s takeover of California from Mexico. He was not even 40 years old when Americans began naming mountains and towns after him. He had perfect timing, exploring the West just as it captured the nation’s attention. But the most important factor in his fame may have been the person who made it all possible: his wife, Jessie Benton Frémont.
Jessie, the daughter of a United States senator who was deeply involved in the West, provided her husband with entrée to the highest levels of government and media, and his career reached new heights only a few months after their elopement. During a time when women were allowed to make few choices for themselves, Jessie – who herself aspired to roles in exploration and politics – threw her skill and passion into promoting her husband. She worked to carefully edit and publicize his accounts of his travels, attracted talented young men to his circle, and lashed out at his enemies. She became her husband’s political adviser, as well as a power player in her own right. In 1856, the famous couple strategized as John became the first-ever presidential nominee of the newly established Republican Party.
With rare detail and in consummate style, Steve Inskeep tells the story of a couple whose joint ambitions and talents intertwined with those of the nascent United States itself. Taking advantage of expanding news media, aided by an increasingly literate public, the two linked their names to the three great national movements of the time—westward settlement, women’s rights, and opposition to slavery. Together, John and Jessie Frémont took parts in events that defined the country and gave rise to a new, more global America. Theirs is a surprisingly modern tale of ambition and fame; they lived in a time of social and technological disruption and divisive politics that foreshadowed our own. In Imperfect Union, as Inskeep navigates these deeply transformative years through Jessie and John’s own union, he reveals how the Frémonts’ adventures amount to nothing less than a tour of the early American soul. - reviews
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
November 15, 2019
A biography of explorer John C. Frémont and his equally adventurous wife, Jessie. John C. Frémont (1813-1890), born out of wedlock to an aristocratic American mother and a lower-echelon French immigrant named Frémon, was a self-invented and self-inventing American archetype, unafraid of the hard work of building reputation and fortune. As a young military officer, he mounted surveying expeditions of the American West that opened the door to westward expansion--and, writes NPR Morning Edition host Inskeep (Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab, 2015, etc.), may even have been "secretly told to conquer California," picking a fight with Mexico in order to do so, even though Frémont had previously been opposed to a war that would enable "the extension of slavery." John and Jessie, daughter of a prominent senator, were creatures of endless ambition, and between them, they gained and lost staggering amounts of money while engaging in quixotic gambles to attain the presidency. Though a unionist at heart, Frémont wasn't shy about finding allies among the pro-slavery figures in office in the years leading up to Southern secession. He then rejoined the Army but was ineffective enough that Lincoln relieved him of any real responsibilities. Inskeep is a little more free-ranging in his view of Frémont than Tom Chaffin, whose 2002 study Pathfinder: John C. Frémont and the Course of American Empire is the last major study of the man. Inskeep extends the story to suggest that Jessie and John were the first modern celebrities--though Daniel Boone probably deserves that honor--and that John was instrumental in laying out the foundations for the Civil War, which had been cooking before his birth. Still, the book is highly readable, and the author draws renewed attention to these undeniably important historical personages, who are too often forgotten among the likes of Kit Carson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Horace Greeley. A lively introduction to a pair of flawed yet extraordinary figures in the nation's movement westward.COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
December 1, 2019
Inskeep (host, NPR's Morning Edition; Jacksonland) begins this latest work with an 1845 incident intended to demonstrate the enormous fame of John Fremont (1813-90) at that time. After a local newspaper reported Fremont's arrival in St. Louis prior to his third expedition of the American West, he was assailed by an unruly mass of men who wished to join him. Inskeep proposes that the main reason behind Fremont's celebrity status was his wife Jessie Benton Fremont (1824-1902), the daughter of influential senator Thomas Hart Benton. Jessie Benton Fremont was politically ambitious; since holding office was not possible for women at the time, she put her efforts into supporting and promoting her husband, introducing him to influential people in government and media, and helping him write reports of his adventures. Later, she advised him politically when he became the first presidential candidate of the Republican Party in 1856. The story of the Fremonts is captured skillfully throughout this enjoyable work. VERDICT Well-written, entertaining, and strongly recommended for readers interested in American history.--Dave Pugl, Ela Area P.L., Lake Zurich, IL
Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
January 13, 2020
NPR host Inskeep (Jacksonland) charts John Frémont’s rise from an impoverished, peripatetic childhood in the American South to become a celebrated Western explorer and the Republican Party’s first-ever presidential nominee in this scrupulously researched history. Frémont’s five mid-19th-century expeditions—including treks from the Great Plains to Oregon, and into California on the eve of the Mexican-American War—earned him nationwide acclaim as an embodiment of the country’s “manifest destiny,” according to Inskeep, who examines the era’s emerging political fissures over slavery and westward expansion with nuance. He reveals how Frémont’s wife, Jessie Benton Frémont, daughter of Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton, helped to write her husband’s reports on his explorations, “amplified his talent for self-promotion,” and guided his sometimes naive political instincts. Quoting a contemporary rival’s assessment that Jessie was “the better man of the two,” Inskeep discusses how her prominent role in Frémont’s 1856 presidential campaign provided inspiration for the women’s suffrage movement. This sweeping yet fine-grained account contextualizes the issues facing pre–Civil War America without losing sight of the interpersonal dynamics at the heart of the narrative. History buffs will savor Inskeep’s fluid, multifaceted approach to the subject. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Agency.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
December 15, 2019
How does a bastard, poor boy, son of a French immigrant, dropped in the middle of 19th century America, grow up to be a celebrity explorer? Journalist and NPR host Inskeep (Jacksonland, 2015) tells the uniquely American story of soldier and surveyor John Fr�mont and his wife, Jessie?daughter of prominent U.S. senator and western expansionist Thomas Hart Benton?whose verve, political connections, and promotional skills helped vault John to national prominence. Inskeep follows the Fr�monts' upward journey, from John's early expeditions charting and profiting from pre-Gold Rush California to his 1856 presidential campaign as the first nominee of the newly founded Republican Party. He also credits the couple as pioneers of the modern path to celebrity, wherein savvy with the era's news media mattered as much as notable feats. That the Fr�monts' story also embodied pre-Civil War America's larger movements of women's rights, opposition to slavery, and the manifest destiny of westward settlement makes this an insightful and welcome biography of consequential Americans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
November 15, 2019
A biography of explorer John C. Fr�mont and his equally adventurous wife, Jessie. John C. Fr�mont (1813-1890), born out of wedlock to an aristocratic American mother and a lower-echelon French immigrant named Fr�mon, was a self-invented and self-inventing American archetype, unafraid of the hard work of building reputation and fortune. As a young military officer, he mounted surveying expeditions of the American West that opened the door to westward expansion--and, writes NPR Morning Edition host Inskeep (Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab, 2015, etc.), may even have been "secretly told to conquer California," picking a fight with Mexico in order to do so, even though Fr�mont had previously been opposed to a war that would enable "the extension of slavery." John and Jessie, daughter of a prominent senator, were creatures of endless ambition, and between them, they gained and lost staggering amounts of money while engaging in quixotic gambles to attain the presidency. Though a unionist at heart, Fr�mont wasn't shy about finding allies among the pro-slavery figures in office in the years leading up to Southern secession. He then rejoined the Army but was ineffective enough that Lincoln relieved him of any real responsibilities. Inskeep is a little more free-ranging in his view of Fr�mont than Tom Chaffin, whose 2002 study Pathfinder: John C. Fr�mont and the Course of American Empire is the last major study of the man. Inskeep extends the story to suggest that Jessie and John were the first modern celebrities--though Daniel Boone probably deserves that honor--and that John was instrumental in laying out the foundations for the Civil War, which had been cooking before his birth. Still, the book is highly readable, and the author draws renewed attention to these undeniably important historical personages, who are too often forgotten among the likes of Kit Carson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Horace Greeley. A lively introduction to a pair of flawed yet extraordinary figures in the nation's movement westward.COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- popularity
- 890
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/96e3b740-a980-4b07-ba99-5dbde965f998/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 96e3b740-a980-4b07-ba99-5dbde965f998
- starRating
- 3.7
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{96E3B740-A980-4B07-BA99-5DBDE965F998}Img100.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{96E3B740-A980-4B07-BA99-5DBDE965F998}Img200.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/96E/3B7/40/{96E3B740-A980-4B07-BA99-5DBDE965F998}Img150.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/96E/3B7/40/{96E3B740-A980-4B07-BA99-5DBDE965F998}Img400.jpg
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Biography & Autobiography
- value: History
- value: Nonfiction
- publishDateText
- 01/14/2020
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780735224353
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
- Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Frémont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America's first great political couple
John C. Frémont, one of the United States’s leading explorers of the nineteenth century, was relatively unknown in 1842, when he commanded the first of his expeditions to the uncharted West. But in only a few years, he was one of the most acclaimed people of the age – known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States’s takeover of California from Mexico. He was not even 40 years old when Americans began naming mountains and towns after him. He had perfect timing, exploring the West just as it captured the nation’s attention. But the most important factor in his fame may have been the person who made it all... - sortTitle
- Imperfect Union How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West Invented Celebrity and Helped Cause the Civil War
- crossRefId
- 4754075
- subtitle
- How Jessie and John Frémont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity, and Helped Cause the Civil War
- publisher
- Penguin Publishing Group
- bisacCodes
- code: BIO023000
- description: Biography & Autobiography / Adventurers & Explorers
- code: HIS036040
- description: History / United States / 19th Century
- code: HIS036140
- description: History / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY)
