Something new from Jersey City historian and author -- Thomas Fleming (Mysteries My Father)

The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers

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20 questions: Historian Thomas Fleming

By Emily Goodin
12/14/09

In his book The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers, historian Thomas Fleming examines the personal lives of six familiar names in history: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Fleming examines how their relationships with their wives and families affected their roles in founding the country. Fleming, an author of numerous books, spoke to The Hill about his latest tome:

How did you pick these six men to profile?

They?re the six generally agreed on as the six major Founding Fathers. ? You had to draw the line somewhere. Six seemed to be a very good [number]. And they really did the most important things.

Did they have any common characteristics?

They really don?t have any truly common characteristics. The striking thing is how different they all are one from another.

So what were the striking differences?
The startling difference is they are different ages, for one thing. Franklin was by far the oldest. He was almost 30 years older than Washington. Madison was much younger than Washington, and Hamilton was almost a boy. He was 22 when he became Washington?s aide in 1777.

These are men who have had volumes of books written about them. How did you decide what to include and what to exclude?

As a novelist I was very interested in insights into the personal lives of people. ? I was doing research into how people thought and felt in these distant eras. ? I hadn?t really looked at what was going on behind them in their personal lives. And this book is a perfect example, if I may say so, of my ability to blend ? those two sides ? to look at these men?s personal lives through the eyes of the historian.

I like how you included equal information about their wives and mothers.

It gives a depth to the portrait we have of them.

Since you?ve written so much about this time period, was there anything you learned that surprised you?

It?s full of surprises for both the writer and the reader. The perfect example is the opening. ? I knew that Washington had written this letter to Sally Fairfax but I had no idea when it had gotten into the historical arena, so I started doing research and I found out it appeared in the 1870s. ? It was in the New York Herald, the biggest newspaper of the time, this letter, this Washington love letter. And then you followed this sensation it caused that George Washington wrote this love letter ? not to his wife ? but to the wife of his close friend. He wrote it four months after he got engaged to Martha.

Was it really a love letter?

Not all historians agree what this letter means. ? I think it?s very convincing that this was a love letter written by a man on the verge of going into battle.

I noticed you quoted a lot of letters in your book.

That?s the great thing about picking these six Founding Fathers: All of their collections are in the process of being published. ? But one of the surprising things is that the letters of some of these women have been collected. ? There are sources that make you feel like you?re in touch with historical reality.

Not all these men were born to wealthy or prominent families?

Some were, but Hamilton ? you couldn?t get much more poorer than Hamilton down there in the West Indies.

He had a tough childhood.

He was orphaned at 14 or 15 and had no money at all. He was supported by a relative who felt sorry for him and his brother. His father was just a colossal failure in business. And, as I say in the book, his mother was quite a dame ? she kicked [Hamilton?s father] out of bed and he just left. It just gave you a depth and more much insight into ? what Hamilton had to deal with in his life.

Out of these six men, did you have a favorite?

I always like to say you respect Washington immensely and admire him. ? But Franklin was my favorite. You?ll love him. You?ll love Ben Franklin.

Why?s that?

He?s so funny, so witty, so charming. He had the ability to say the right thing. He was especially good at saying the right thing to women and teasing them and so forth. ? He had a wife in London who he didn?t marry and a wife in Philadelphia that he outgrew.

I was surprised to read Franklin was quite the ladies? man.

His reputation as a ladies? man has gotten out of control, I?m afraid ? mostly because of John Adams and all the vicious things he wrote about Franklin in France. ... [I]n France, these French women adored him. They loved his banter.

What was Adams?s reaction?

Adams couldn?t deal with this. He just went nuts. He wrote these scandalous letters about Franklin.

Were there any other feuds between the men you wrote about?

Washington and Jefferson just went at each other. They became deadly enemies before it was over.

How did their feud get started?

Jefferson was so infuriated at the way Hamilton had persuaded Washington to do things his way. So he goes to see the president and he sits down, talks for one solid hour, damning Hamilton any way he can think of ? and Washington listens without saying a word and then at the end he says: ?Mr. Jefferson, I have listened very carefully to everything you have said and I?m sorry to tell you I don?t agree with a word of it.? ? Jefferson couldn?t deal with it. He resigned after that rebuff. Jefferson did not like the kind of the president Washington was. Jefferson saw him as kinglike. Jefferson was absolutely paranoid about federal power.

So sex scandals haven?t changed much in 200 years?

The really big scandal was Hamilton. He had a lack of confidence in himself as far as being a faithful husband was concerned because [of] what he had seen growing up. I think there?s another side to Hamilton?s affair with this woman.

Why?s that?

I think it has a lot to do with the fact he met Maria Reynolds, the woman he had the affair with, at the peak of his political victory. ... He had restored America?s finances, the stock market was going out of sight. He was a miracle worker. He was having political ecstasies.

Modern politicians seem to have those too.
I think there is a connection between politicians? affairs and the kind of emotions they generate when they?re out there campaigning, giving speeches and so forth. ? [Hamilton] wanted the kind of sexual experience he wasn?t getting from his wife that would match the political thrill.

Is the Revolutionary War your favorite time period?

... I grew up in this Irish ghetto in Jersey City. I was very proud of being Irish ? but I didn?t know much about my American history. ? I wanted to become as American as I was Irish and I really devoted the main portion of my life to it.

http://thehill.com/capital-living/20- ... -historian-thomas-fleming

Historian: Chicago now and Jersey City back then

by The Jersey Journal
Tuesday December 23, 2008

Thomas Fleming, noted historian and author of "Mysteries of My Father: An Irish-American Memoir," -- a family history that captures the social and political landscapes of Hague-era Jersey City -- waxes poetic about the days of Mayor Frank Hague in a History News Network column online this morning.

I write as lifelong student - and survivor-- of Democratic politics, Jersey City division. We always felt close to Chicago. In the early 1930s, our leader, Mayor Frank Hague, was up against the wall. He had lost most of his money in the Crash of 1929. ... My father, Teddy Fleming, one of the Mayor's right hand men, told me what happened next. Hague picked up the telephone and called his pal Ed Kelly, the boss of Chicago. "Ed, " he said. "I need two million bucks fast."

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http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/58650.html
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Thomas Fleming: Obama's from Chicago ... Why that Shouldn't Worry Us

Source: Newark Star-Ledger (12-21-08)

[Thomas Fleming is a past president of the Society of American Historians. He is the author of a much praised memoir, Mysteries of My Father.]

Good old Chicago. Thanks to garrulous Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, we have just learned that in the home town of President-Elect Barack Obama, who has promised us a regime dedicated to change, nothing seems to have changed.

I write as lifelong student ? and survivor-- of Democratic politics, Jersey City division. We always felt close to Chicago. In the early 1930s, our leader, Mayor Frank Hague, was up against the wall. He had lost most of his money in the Crash of 1929. He had backed Al Smith instead of FDR in the 1932 Democratic Convention. He had barely won reelection in 1929 and his foes in and out of the party were gathering to demolish him in the upcoming city election.

My father, Teddy Fleming, one of the Mayor?s right hand men, told me what happened next. Hague picked up the telephone and called his pal Ed Kelly, the boss of Chicago. ?Ed, ? he said. ?I need two million bucks fast.?

?You?ll have it tomorrow,? Ed replied

The next morning a dapper gentleman, fresh off the overnight train from Chicago, arrived at Jersey City?s City Hall with two million delicious greenbacks in a suitcase. A revived Frank Hague easily won reelection. Ed Kelly helped him make peace with President Roosevelt, who delivered all the jobs in the WPA and other Federal programs into the Mayor?s care in New Jersey. That made him an unbeatable titan for most of another two decades. These same Washington goodies were, of course, also handed to Ed Kelly to distribute in Illinois. Throughout the 1930s, Ed toured Chicago and its environs giving a very successful speech entitled: ?Roosevelt Is My Religion.?

Is this as bad as it sounds? Maybe not. Last spring, the New Jersey Historical Commission gave me a Lifetime Achievement Award for writing American history. I responded with a brief speech entitled: ?Us Against Them.? I explained that this was the motto of Jersey City?s politics in my boyhood. It was us, the Irish-Americans and their Italian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian and Jewish allies against the hypocritical mean-spirited white Protestants of New Jersey, who thought they were entitled to run things because their ancestors had been around in 1776.

One might assume this philosophy would produce a lifelong political cynic. For a while it did. I agreed with another famous boss, Huey Long of Louisiana, that people were born corrupt and stayed that way. But in 1970, at the age of 43 I had a unique experience. I met ex-President Harry S. Truman. He had liked my biography of Thomas Jefferson and selected me to help his daughter Margaret write his biography I spent several weeks in Independence over the next year, talking to him and Mrs. Truman about his political career.

It soon dawned on me that here was a man who began as a candidate of Kansas City Missouri?s Boss Tom Pendergast, leader of one of the roughest, toughest, most corrupt political organizations in America. Yet HST never took a cent of dirty money from Pendergast, and he stood up to him when crooked contractors tried to build lousy highways on the cheap in Truman?s bailiwick. He won Boss Tom?s respect and his nomination for the U.S. Senate, which led to the vice presidency and his ?accidental? presidency when FDR died in 1945.

As president, Mr. Truman amazed cynics and skeptics with his honesty and courage and vision. Perhaps his most daring decision was his insistence on a civil rights plank in the 1948 Democratic Convention. Four southern states, led by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, seceded from the party. Party cynics pleaded with them, pointing out that President Roosevelt had had similar planks in the platform in all four of his nominating conventions. ?Yes but Truman means it!? Thurmond said.

For black Americans 1948 was a turning point in their long and often torturous struggle for equality and respect. President Lyndon Johnson made that clear when he signed his landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. He invited Harry Truman to stand beside him at the ceremony.

I voted for Harry Truman and that plank in 1948. Thinking about it in 1970, face to face with the man who was responsible for it, I realized that the old motto of my boyhood, ?Us Against Them,? had expired in that election.

That enabled me to appreciate ? and applaud -- a lot of things that had changed and were changing in my native New Jersey. Governors like Richard Hughes and Brendan Byrne had proved that Irish-Americans could think and act and lead on behalf of all the people in the state. Soon, thanks to reading a lot of history, I got a perspective on Frank Hague and my father and their generation that enabled me to explain them to myself and a lot of other people -- without minimizing their flaws. They were part of our past, part of the long often angry struggle of both ethnic Americans and blacks to win recognition of their humanity and right to a fair deal.

Looking back at the history of the presidency, it is remarkable how often the voters chose men who did not seem promising to the educated elite. The so-called best people were appalled by that hot tempered roughneck from Tennessee, Andrew Jackson. They took an equally dim view of Abraham Lincoln, with his weird Kentucky accent and Aw Shucks style. In New Jersey they dubbed him ?The Brainless Bobolink of the Prairie.? If ex-haberdasher Harry Truman could emerge from Kansas City?s Pendergast machine and achieve presidential greatness, I think we can continue to hope President-elect Barack Obama of Chicago can do it too.