Passionate Mothers, Powerful Sons

The Lives of Jennie Jerome Churchill and Sara Delano Roosevelt

De: Charlotte Gray

Narrado por: Allyson Ryan

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 Audio

Dreadful reader

Why choose a reader who speaks in a monotone and mispronounces every single foreign word, including English names and place names? It made me cringe every time. It was very annoying. Surely there were better choices available.

A very readable profile of these two women

I loved this book. Very informative and thorough, I found the reader’s performance distracting though. She mispronounced words, and the flow was a bit stilted.

The description of life when these two women were living

I felt that I understood the actions of both Jenny and Sara. It was a very objective account of their lives.

Wonderful picture of both women!

Wonderful in depth biography of Jennie Churchill and Sarah Delano Rosevelt. Two women of their time, constrained by the values and ideas about women . Both sons were very attached to their mothers even though their style of mothering was so different. I wonder if Rosevelt could have made it without his mother. Excellent reading.