| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 131.3

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| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 131.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Reviews

A Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powel, 1743–1830. By David W. Maxey. (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2006. xii, 91 pp. Illustrations, notes, index. $24.)
In the zeitgeist of early American memory, Elizabeth Willing Powel is recalled for moments she shared with two of the nation's founding fathers. First, she stood at the front of the crowd facing the Constitutional Convention delegates as they left Independence Hall on the last day of the convention and—after asking Benjamin Franklin what the fate of the nation's government would be—garnered the reply "You have a republic, if you can keep it." And she wrote George Washington the famous 1792 letter rebuking him for thinking of retiring from the presidency, guilting the first chief executive into agreeing to a second term. Both stories appear and reappear in popular histories and textbooks. Most often, they still seem to hold a smirking "women-say-the-darnedest-thing" tone. Thus, this well-written, thoroughly researched, beautifully produced volume on Elizabeth Willing Powel's life is especially welcome.	1
Willing Powel was one of the most famous women in colonial and early national Philadelphia. Known for her intelligence, wit, style, and occasionally sharp tongue, she played hostess to the country's founding fathers and mothers, presided over a home that has survived as one of the most impressive architectural treasures of the late colonial period, and, as David W. Maxey has revealed, sat for a series of portraits that offer revealing clues into the life of one woman, and indeed the lives of many women, in that critical era.	. . .

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