An Intimate Portrait of a Jewish American Family in America's First Century Mordecai is a brilliant multigenerational history at the forefront of a new way of exploring our past, one that follows the course of national events through the relationships that speak most immediately to us--between parent and child, sibling and sibling, husband and wife. In Emily Bingham's sure hands, this family of southern Jews becomes a remarkable window on the struggles all Americans were engaged in during the early years of the republic. Following Washington's victory at Yorktown, Jacob and Judy Mordecai settled in North Carolina. Here began a three generational effort to match ambitions to accomplishments. Against the national backdrop of the Great Awakenings, Nat Turner's revolt, the free-love experiments of the 1840s, and the devastation of the Civil War, we witness the efforts of each generation's members to define themselves as Jews, patriots, southerners, and most fundamentally, middle-class Americans. As with the nation's, their successes are often partial and painfully realized, cause for forging and rending the ties that bind child to parent, sister to brother, husband to wife. And through it all, the Mordecais wrote--letters, diaries, newspaper articles, books. Out of these rich archives, Bingham re-creates one family's first century in the United States and gives this nation's early history a uniquely personal face.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Generational view of a Jewish American Family From the Revolution Through the Civil War:
This rather dry but well documented history of a Jewish family starts with the patriarch Jacob who moved from New York to a small southern town and ends with his grandchildren many of whom make their homes in the south. While the reader may be curious to know the family's situation in society at the end, this book is not a gripping page turner. If the reader wants a page turner, he/she should read The Other Boleyn Girl. Both books are historically accurate. One wonders why Bingham could not make this... more info
Engrossing:
I picked up Emily Bingham's book Mordecai An Early American Family while visiting my son and daughter-in-law. My intent was to give the book a quick glance and set it aside. By the end of the first chapter I was engrossed in the story of the Mordecai family, its hopes, its dreams, its successes, its failures. The family was depicted as tightly knit unit. Daughters were as well educated as sons. All worked together for the good of the family. Ms. Bingham's discussion of the family's struggles to maintain... more info
Emily Bingham knows the Mordecais:
While others have been captured by their story, there is no other scholar who has put as much time and thought into the fascinating lives of the Mordecai family, nor is there anyone else who has written about them with such care and obvious attention to detail. This is, indeed, an American family, and through their lives Bingham escorts the reader through many of nineteenth century America's most divisive and troubling dilemmas, while demonstrating the power of kinship to unite loved ones through such a... more info
Bingham's MORDECAI--An American Jewish Saga:
Emily Bingham's biography of the Mordecais is beautifully researched and written. Thanks to the family's voluminous journals, letters, books, and diaries--and to Bingham's graceful style--we have a family history that compels us to keep turning the pages. Three generations of Mordecais come alive, shedding light upon the complex history of the Southern Jewish experience. Among many individuals who stand out, perhaps the most unforgettable are Alfred, accepted at West Point at a time (the mid 1800s)... more info
