Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Women's History
Public Wife: The Life Of Jessie Benton Fremont, Lorraine D. Herbon
Public Wife: The Life Of Jessie Benton Fremont, Lorraine D. Herbon
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation focuses on the life of Jessie Benton Frémont (1824-1902) and the ways in which she performed the role of a “public wife” through her marriage to John C. Frémont. This re-examination of a woman immensely popular in the nineteenth century offers a new way of thinking about the wives of famous men and the steps they took to both participate in, and direct the narrative of, American history.
Jessie Benton was the daughter of Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton. At sixteen, Jessie met a young man from the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers who came to meet with …