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2.       You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe

Alexis Coe begins her book by noting that there hasn’t been an adult biography of George Washington written by a woman in over forty years.

She then pokes fun of some of Washington’s male biographers, who she nicknames the “Thigh Men” for their obsession with the Founding Father’s manliness. The historian Joseph Ellis, for example, admired how Washington’s thighs “allowed him to grip a horse’s flanks tightly and hold his seat in the saddle with uncommon ease.”

Coe’s perspective is helpful when considering George Washington’s mother, Mary Washington.

The Thigh Men often present Mary as a shrew, though there is little evidence to support such a harsh view.

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Coe’s Mary Washington, on the other hand, is a hard-working widow, who managed the farm and raised arguably the greatest American of all time.

This book has lots of lists and sidebars and primary sources. I really