"Winner of the Mary Kelly Prize of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic"
"Winner of the Herbert H. Lehman Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in New York history"
"[Douglass's] life, argues the author persuasively, was shaped by women... A fresh and insightful perspective on a major historical figure." - Kirkus
"[Frederick Douglass was] one of the age's most passionate male feminists, as Leigh Fought shows in Women in the World of Frederick Douglass, a fresh and surprising account of Douglass's life." - Fergus M. Bordewich, Wall Street Journal
"This is a fascinating account of an impressive man and the equally accomplished women who supported his monumental efforts to secure freedom and rights for blacks and women." - Booklist, Starred Review
"By making its focus those indomitable and sometimes troubling women, Fought has written an engaging book that is compelling, sometimes even fierce, and extremely relevant." - Arts Fuse
"[T]horoughly researched....Although the complex nature of Douglass's relationships with women will never be fully understood, Fought unveils how women were attracted to Douglass and how he equated the servitude of race to that of gender." - John David Smith, The North Carolina Historical Review
"For anyone interested in women's history, this book" - well-researched and well-written
"Historian Leigh Fought has written a path-breaking, biographical account of Frederick Douglass through the eyes of the women who influenced him. Fought, a skillful researcher and gifted writer, has been working on the book for years and the final product does not disappoint." - Eric J.Chaput, Providence Journal
"Leigh Fought reimagines Douglass's life by placing women at the center of the narrative. She offers vivid portraits of the relatives, friends, and sister activists-enslaved and free, black and white, American and British" - who provided Douglass with critical emotional, material, intellectual, and political support. These women helped shape and sustain Douglass throughout his life and ensured his legacy for future generations; their legacy, too, is now ensured in this lively and lucid book." - Nancy A. Hewitt, author of No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism
"In this well-researched and richly textured book, Leigh Fought gives us a fascinating new view into the life and times of one our most famous and revered figures: Frederick Douglass. As he freely acknowledged, women helped make Douglass the man he became. So we, too, are in debt to the women whose stories come so vividly alive in these pages." - Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family"
"Fought's book takes us into the Douglass households and makes them come alive. Two wives, two intimate European friends, a grandmother, a fascinating daughter, many granddaughters, as well as fictive sisters and other kin all inhabit this work of deep scholarship. Fought is an intrepid researcher and lucid writer with superb judgment. The women and Douglass himself come alive anew through these crucial relationships; the man who expressed so little about his private life is here brought under a bright light, not with prurience, but with analytical understanding and keen sympathy. This is the most important Douglass book in many years." - David W. Blight, Yale University"
"With meticulous research and judicious analysis, Leigh Fought resurrects the women who until now lay hidden in the shadows of Frederick Douglass's storied life. Whether one agrees with her or not, this book is well worth the read." - Manisha Sinha, author of The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition"
"Finalist, Harriet Tubman Prize of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery "
"“In this original and engaging interpretation of the life of Frederick Douglass, Leigh Fought argues that black and white women were essential to his career as an abolitionist and civil rights activist....Her book will contain revelations even for those with expertise in Douglass, the antislavery movement, and women in nineteenth-century America. She also challenges historians to reflect on their own assumptions about the relationship between public and private when writing about great, and feminist, men like Frederick Douglass.”-Carol Faulkner, Journal of the Civil War Era "
"“Fought's work contributes to the excavation of Douglass's career while also offering an important contribution to the social and political history of abolitionism.”-Jonathan Lande, Civil War Monitor "
