by Valerie Estelle Frankel (Author)
One of the most striking elements of the Hamilton musical is its women-feisty Angelica, loving Eliza, alluring Maria...and Peggy. However, with limited time, the show has little chance to delve into the women's most fascinating elements. Angelica ran off with British scoundrel and double agent John Church, while Peggy scandalously wed her astoundingly wealthy teen cousin. Eliza was inducted into the Iroquois as a child, and spent her widowhood not only sparring with presidents but journeying to the West at age eighty. Burr educated his daughter Theodosia to equal any man, before her tragically mysterious end, while her mother's tangle with Mrs. Benedict Arnold changed history. Maria's story, too, may be far more complex than Hamilton claimed. Beside these irrepressible characters are the many other founding mothers-Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and all the others who, however lightly touched upon, transformed the Revolution and the young nation forever.