Anderson’s Bookshop, Naperville, is delighted to present a special event with journalist, political commentator, and author Cokie Roberts. She is expanding on her fascinating reports about the key contributions made by women in the early years of the United States. She began with stories of the Revolutionary War period in Founding Mothers and Ladies of Liberty. New is Capital Dames, her collection honoring women of the Civil War.
At 7PM on Wednesday, April 29, Roberts is headed to Naperville to meet with readers and fans at Community Christian Church, 1635 Emerson Ln.
Tickets are available with the purchase of Roberts’ new book from Anderson’s Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave. in downtown Naperville or online at www.andersonsbookshop.com. For additional information, call Anderson’s at 630-355-2665.
Roberts will be sharing her new book, Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington 1848-1868. Event tickets are available with the purchase of Roberts’ new book from Anderson’s Bookshop. The author will sign her book for attendees at the event.
Overview of Capital Dames…
As the culmination of the Civil War’s sesquicentennial in April 2015 approaches, Cokie Roberts provides a revelatory look at the lives of women during a tumultuous and perennially fascinating era of American history. Concentrating on Washington, D.C., then a small Southern town that sat as a bull’s eye between battling armies, Roberts explores newspaper articles, government records, and private letters and diaries—many never before published—to reconstruct a remarkable period of conflict and change for its self-described belles, for whom life would never be the same.
Through the eyes of Washington D.C.’s fierce, sometimes funny, and almost always formidable female residents, such as Adele Cutts Douglas and Elizabeth Blair Lee, Roberts describes its transformation from a sleepy, social city to a contested place of political power. The secession forced many of the southern women to depart, and the union loyalists—and friends—they left behind were soon grappling with questions of safety and sanitation as the capital was transformed first into a huge army camp and then a massive hospital.
With the men gone to fight, women stepped up to the plate as nurses, supply organizers, relief workers, propagandists, and journalists. Just like World War II’s Rosie the Riveter, women made munitions at arsenals, many losing their lives in awful accidents, and worked at the Treasury Department to print greenbacks to pay for the war. The Navy Yard broke with tradition as well and hired women to sew canvas bags for gunpowder.
There is no author better than Roberts to chronicle the increasing political empowerment these women experienced through their new-found independence and importance. After emancipation was declared in the capital in 1862, friends previously divided resettled and united to promote a common cause—changes in public policy, through lobbying and activism, which were desperately needed to heal a country torn apart.
Brief Bio of Cokie Roberts
Cokie Roberts is a political commentator for ABC News and NPR. She has won countless awards, and in 2008 she was named a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress. She is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller We Are Our Mothers’ Daughters. Her other books, Founding Mothers, Ladies of Liberty, and From This Day Forward (written with her husband, journalist Steven V. Roberts), also spent weeks on the bestseller list. She and her husband have also collaborated on Our Haggadah. Roberts is the mother of two and grandmother of six.
Cokie Roberts’ upcoming visit is part of Anderson’s Bookshops’ calendar of special author events. Anderson’s Bookshops specialize in book sales, author events, book signings, and building a sense of community, learning and fun. The store has been helping Naperville readers for six generations. In 1878, Oswald’s pharmacy began selling books as a service to customers. So successful was that side of the business that it became an independent entity in 1964.
Based in downtown Naperville, the store has grown with the community ever since. A second location is also open in downtown Downers Grove, at 5112 Main Street (630)-963-2665. A gift shop, Anderson’s Two-Doors East, at 111 W. Jefferson Ave., in Naperville, opened in the fall of 2009. Key to Anderson’s success has been special author events, like the program on April 29 with Cokie Roberts.
