There are towns and mountains named for John Frémont. But unlike Lewis and Clark, whose expedition preceded him into the American West, he is remembered mainly by antiquarians. Steve Inskeep hopes to raise Frémont’s historical profile with Imperfect Union and reconstruct the role of his wife. Jessie Frémont was the daughter of a powerful political family and used her access to gain her husband the ear of influential men. The married couple astutely played the news media of the 1840s; Frémont’s exploits out West and his conquest of California from Mexico won him acclaim. He was the nascent Republican Party’s first presidential nominee, but he lost to the dithering James Buchanan, whose administration served as the prelude to the Civil War.
Best known as cohost of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Inskeep authored several previous books on American history. With a journalist’s eye for contemporary relevance, he zeroes in on gender and race. Jessie was an ambitious woman who—given the era—could only achieve her goals through her husband. She was likely the couple’s prime mover in their outspoken stand against slavery, which ran contrary to their Southern origins. Imperfect Union’s subtitle is hyperbolic. John mapped the West, but the Frémonts didn’t “invent celebrity.” Their role in causing the Civil War came down to pushing California’s admission to the Union as a free state, upsetting the tenuous balance of power in the U.S. Senate.
Well written and researched, Imperfect Union casts a bright light on important episodes from America’s past.
