For nearly two and a half centuries, most of the stories Americans have told themselves about their country’s past have been about men, by men, for men. Women, like people of color, have typically been relegated to supporting roles. And so when women biographers and historians get a chance to correct the record, they tend to shift the focus away from the leading man, lingering instead on the forgotten people and understudied issues around him—which are actually integral to the understanding of him, too.
