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03010aam a2200397 i 4500 001 9A855CF0650911E6BA021E8ADAD10320 003 SILO 005 20200118010508 008 151117s2016 nyua b 001 0ceng 010 $a 2015028245 020 $a 1137279818 020 $a 9781137279811 (hardback) : 040 $a DLC $b eng $e rda $c DLC $d NvReBT $d SILO 042 $a pcc 043 $a n-us--- 050 00 $a CT274.F593 $b S65 2016 082 00 $a B $a B $2 23 100 1 $a Smith, Daniel Blake. 245 10 $a Our family dreams : $b the Fletchers' adventures in nineteenth-century America / $c Daniel Blake Smith. 264 1 $a New York City : $b St. Martin's Press, $c 2016. 300 $a x, 275 pages : $b illustrations ; $c 24 cm. 504 $a Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-270) and index. 520 2 $a "In the early years after the Revolution, Americans were on the move, seeking to establish a new way of life. And, more than the church or the school or the courthouse, it was the family that nurtured the American Dream. In this novel-like narrative, Daniel Blake Smith vividly brings to life the Fletchers, a family of loving, ambitious, at times insecure pioneers who scattered across the vast expanse of post-revolutionary America but kept in touch through letters despite their wildly different life paths. On a hard scrabble farm in Vermont, the patriarch, Jesse Fletcher, struggled with debt and depression but managed to educate his children, especially his son Elijah, a Yankee who moved to Virginia, shocked by the horrors of slavery but then seduced by the plantation lifestyle. Another son, Calvin, left at age 17 for Indianapolis to become a self-made lawyer, banker, and a prominent citizen and passionate abolitionist. The grandchildren include Indiana, a women's education activist who donated her home to create Sweet Briar College; black sheep Lucian, who went to California to join in the gold rush; and physician Billy captured as a spy during the Civil War. Through letters and diaries, we find that the Fletchers appear surprisingly similar to us; they dream, fret, fight, and love. Despite numerous heartaches and setbacks, their spirit of enterprise, sacrifice, mobility, and education endures as American values to this day"-- $c Provided by publisher. 505 0 $a Beginnings -- Heading West -- Settling In -- "The Best Fortune We Can Give Our Children" -- Public Life -- Calamities -- War and Loyalty -- Legacies. 600 30 $a Fletcher family. 600 10 $a Fletcher, Jesse, $d 1762-1831 $x Family. 600 30 $a Fletcher family $v Correspondence. 600 30 $a Fletcher family $v Diaries. 650 0 $a Pioneers $z United States $v Biography. 651 0 $a United States $x History $y 1783-1865 $v Biography. 941 $a 4 952 $l YEPF572 $d 20231012025157.0 952 $l BVPE851 $d 20220728021406.0 952 $l OVUX522 $d 20191213015000.0 952 $l GUPF501 $d 20170801010842.0 956 $a http://locator.silo.lib.ia.us/search.cgi?index_0=id&term_0=9A855CF0650911E6BA021E8ADAD10320Initiate Another SILO Locator Search