
Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons
The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt
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Narrated by:
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Allyson Ryan
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By:
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Charlotte Gray
About this listen
A “spectacular…brilliantly and magnetically written” (Rosalie Abella, former Canadian Supreme Court justice) dual biography of two famous women whose sons would change the course of the 20th century—by award-winning historian Charlotte Gray.
Born into upper-class America in the same year, 1854, Sara Delano (later to become the mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) and Jennie Jerome (later to become the mother of Winston Churchill) refused to settle into predictable, sheltered lives as little-known wives to prominent men. Instead, both women concentrated much of their energies on enabling their sons to reach the epicenter of political power on two continents.
In the mid-19th century, the British Empire was at its height, France’s Second Empire flourished, and the industrial vigor of the United States of America was catapulting the republic towards the Gilded Age. Sara and Jennie, raised with privilege but subject to the constraints of women’s roles at the time, learned how to take control of their destinies—Sara in the prosperous Hudson Valley, and Jennie in the glittering world of Imperial London.
Yet their personalities and choices were dramatically different. A vivacious extrovert, Jennie married Lord Randolph Churchill, a rising politician and scion of a noble British family. Her deft social and political maneuverings helped not only her mercurial husband but, once she was widowed, her ambitious son, Winston. By contrast, deeply conventional Sara Delano married a man as old has her father. But once widowed, she made Franklin, her only child, the focus of her existence. Thanks in large part to her financial support and her guidance, Franklin acquired the skills he needed to become a successful politician.
Set against one hundred years of history, Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons is a “brilliantly conceived and wonderfully written” (Bob Rae, author of What’s Happened to Politics?) study in loyalty and resilience. Gray argues that Jennie and Sara are too often presented as lesser figures in the backdrop of history rather than as two remarkable individuals who were key in shaping the characters of the sons who adored them and in preparing them for leadership on the world stage.
Impeccably researched and filled with intriguing social insights, Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons breathes new life into Sara and Jennie, offering a fascinating and fulsome portrait of how leaders are not just born but made.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2023 Charlotte Gray (P)2023 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Compromise sought unsuccessfully for a decade you could see the Civil War Coming I highly recommend thus book
- By Amazon Customer on 05-09-25
By: Robert W. Merry
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Thaddeus Stevens
- Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice
- By: Bruce Levine
- Narrated by: Landon Woodson
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Thaddeus Stevens was among the first to see the Civil War as an opportunity for a second American revolution - a chance to remake the country as a genuine multiracial democracy. As one of the foremost abolitionists in Congress in the years leading up to the war, he was a leader of the young Republican Party’s radical wing, fighting for anti-slavery and anti-racist policies long before party colleagues like Abraham Lincoln endorsed them. These policies - including welcoming black men into the Union’s armies - would prove crucial to the Union war effort.
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Excellent bio of a political hero
- By Anonymous User on 03-11-21
By: Bruce Levine
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The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books
- Christopher Columbus, His Son, and the Quest to Build the World's Greatest Library
- By: Edward Wilson-Lee
- Narrated by: Richard Trinder
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books tells the story of the first and greatest visionary of the print age, a man who saw how the explosive expansion of knowledge and information generated by the advent of the printing press would entirely change the landscape of thought and society. He also happened to be Christopher Columbus’ illegitimate son.
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Erudite. Stimulating. Rewarding.
- By R. P. RIBEYRE on 10-26-20
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The Hunt for History
- On the Trail of the World's Lost Treasures - from the Letters of Lincoln, Churchill, and Einstein to the Secret Recordings On-Board JFK's Air Force One
- By: Nathan Raab, Luke Barr
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Nathan Raab, America’s preeminent rare documents dealer, delivers a “diverting account of treasure hunting in the fast lane” (The Wall Street Journal) that recounts his years as the Sherlock Holmes of historical artifacts, questing after precious finds and determining their authenticity.
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I wished it was longer
- By NANAS on 04-15-20
By: Nathan Raab, and others
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Silver, Sword, and Stone
- Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story
- By: Marie Arana
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 16 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In this “timely and excellent volume” (NPR) Marie Arana seamlessly weaves these stories with the history of the past millennium to explain three enduring themes that have defined Latin America since pre-Columbian times: the foreign greed for its mineral riches, an ingrained propensity to violence, and the abiding power of religion. Silver, Sword, and Stone combines “learned historical analysis with in-depth reporting and political commentary...[and] an informed and authoritative voice, one that deserves a wide audience” (The New York Times Book Review).
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Marie Arana does not Understand Economics
- By Jose on 01-11-21
By: Marie Arana
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The Boy Who Reached for the Stars
- A Memoir
- By: Elio Morillo
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Elio Morillo’s life is abruptly spun out of orbit when economic collapse and personal circumstances compel his mother to flee Ecuador for the United States in search of a better future for her son. His itinerant childhood sets into motion a migration that will ultimately carry Elio to the farthest expanse of human endeavor: space.
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Such an inspiring story.
- By Anonymous User on 11-01-23
By: Elio Morillo
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Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party
- How an Eccentric Group of Victorians Discovered Prehistoric Creatures and Accidentally Upended the World
- By: Edward Dolnick
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Celebrated storyteller and historian Edward Dolnick leads us through a compelling true adventure as the paleontologists of the first half of the 19th century puzzled their way through the fossil record to create the story of dinosaurs we know today. The tale begins with Mary Anning, a poor, uneducated woman who had a sixth sense for finding fossils buried deep inside cliffs; and moves to a brilliant, eccentric geologist named William Buckland.
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Wonderful narration of an awesome history
- By BB on 09-26-24
By: Edward Dolnick
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Blood Moon
- By: John Sedgwick
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Blood Moon is the story of the century-long blood feud between two rival Cherokee chiefs from the early years of the United States through the infamous Trail of Tears and into the Civil War. While little remembered today, their mutual hatred shaped the tragic history of the tribe far more than anyone, even the reviled President Andrew Jackson, ever did.
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The Real Story
- By CLS on 04-17-18
By: John Sedgwick
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The History of the Ancient World
- From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome
- By: Susan Wise Bauer
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 26 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the first volume in a bold new series that tells the stories of all peoples, connecting historical events from Europe to the Middle East to the far coast of China, while still giving weight to the characteristics of each country. Susan Wise Bauer provides both sweeping scope and vivid attention to the individual lives that give flesh to abstract assertions about human history. This narrative history employs the methods of "history from beneath" - literature, epic traditions, private letters, and accounts - to connect kings and leaders with the lives of those they ruled.
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An Historic Achievement
- By Ellen S. Wilds on 04-25-14
By: Susan Wise Bauer
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Mrs. Kennedy
- The Missing History of the Kennedy Years
- By: Barbara Leaming
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 19 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times bestselling author Barbara Leaming answers the question: What was it like to be Mrs. John F. Kennedy during the dramatic thousand days of the Kennedy presidency? Here for the first time is the full story of the extravagant interplay of sex and politics that constitutes one of modern history's most spectacular dramas.
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An amazing woman who led a truly amazing life.
- By Jn on 02-04-24
By: Barbara Leaming
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Within These Gilded Halls
- A Regency Romance
- By: Abigail Wilson
- Narrated by: Laura Kirman
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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After studying art under Miss Drake, a renowned painter, Phoebe Radcliff is certain she can finally move beyond the childish mistake that’s kept her away from home. She is thrilled when Miss Drake employs her to complete a complicated ballroom renovation. Everything changes, however, the moment Miss Drake is murdered. With her last breath she imparts the location of a clue to Phoebe. Can the biggest secret of Avonthorpe Hall be true? Phoebe is tasked to finish her work in the ballroom by Miss Drake’s infuriatingly regimented yet all-too-handsome nephew, Lt. Graham Burke.
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Superficial
- By LZD on 03-24-23
By: Abigail Wilson
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The Eagles of Heart Mountain
- A True Story of Football, Incarceration, and Resistance in World War II America
- By: Bradford Pearson
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1942, the United States government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona and sent them to incarceration camps across the West. Nearly 14,000 of them landed on the outskirts of Cody, Wyoming, at the base of Heart Mountain. Behind barbed wire fences, they faced racism, cruelty, and frozen winters. Trying to recreate comforts from home, they established Buddhist temples and sumo wrestling pits. Kabuki performances drew hundreds of spectators — yet there was little hope.
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I wanted to like it
- By Happy Mountain on 06-04-22
By: Bradford Pearson
Dreadful reader
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The description of life when these two women were living
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Wonderful picture of both women!
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A very readable profile of these two women
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