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A Slave in the White House: Paul Jennings and the Madisons
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About A Slave In The White House: Paul Jennings And The
About the Author Elizabeth Dowling Taylor received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. Over a 22-year career in museum education and historical research, she was director of interpretation at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and director of education at James Madison’s Montpelier. Most recently a fellow at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Taylor is now an independent scholar and lecturer. She is the author of A Slave in the White House. She lives in Barboursville, Virginia.Annette Gordon-Reed is the author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in History and the National Book Award. She holds three appointments at Harvard University: professor of law at Harvard Law School, professor of history in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. A MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the National Humanities Medal, she is also the author of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy; the coauthor with Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., of Vernon Can Read!; and the editor of Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History. She lives in New York City. Product Description Paul Jennings was born into slavery on the plantation of James and Dolley Madison in Virginia, later becoming part of the Madison household staff at the White House. Once finally emancipated by Senator Daniel Webster later in life, he would give an aged and impoverished Dolley Madison, his former owner, money from his own pocket, write the first White House memoir, and see his sons fight with the Union Army in the Civil War. He died a free man in northwest Washington at 75. Based on correspondence, legal documents, and journal entries rarely seen before, this amazing portrait of the times reveals the mores and attitudes toward slavery of the nineteenth century, and sheds new light on famous characters such as James Madison, who believed the white and black populations could not coexist as equals; French General Lafayette, who was appalled by this idea; Dolley Madison, who ruthlessly sold Paul after her husband's death; and many other since-forgotten slaves, abolitionists, and civil right activists. Review “A detailed picture of the lives of Virgnia slaves and their interactions with their owners, each other, and the wider community.” ―Asbury Park Press“Thanks to Elizabeth Dowling Taylor's enterprise and craftsmanship in rescuing and reanimating this significant and remarkable, but nearly forgotten, American personality, A Slave in the White House is a gift to the early history of the republic and the long story of black and white interdependence.” ―David Levering Lewis, author of District of Columbia: A Bicentennial History and a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of W.E.B. Du Bois“[Paul Jennings's] remarkable life sheds new light on the central themes of American history during his lifetime and beyond. Taylor's sensitive reconstruction... yields fresh perspectives on... James and Dolley Madison... the African-American experience under slavery, the world of free blacks in Washington City during the late antebellum era, and the Civil War and its legacy. Scholars and general readers alike will not be able to put this remarkable book down.” ―Drew McCoy, author of The Last of the Fathers“Elizabeth Dowling Taylor has presented us with the gift of a new American hero. With precision and compassion, Taylor deftly brings Paul Jennings out of the shadows of history. Writer, property-owner, freedom fighter, husband, and father--Jennings's life reveals the complicated humanity behind the designation "slave." This story will humble and inspire all who believe in the American Dream.” ―Catherine Allgor, Professor of History at the University of California at Riverside, UC Presidential Chair“Taylor's careful reconstruction of the life of James Madison's slave valet reveals American history from
