America at 250: Founding Figures

Explore the lives and legacies of the founding fathers and key figures in Revolutionary America with essential biographies selected by RCL subject editors. Resources for College Libraries (RCL) features 90,000+ core titles for academic libraries, curated by Choice/ACRL subject specialists and available at rclweb.net.

Updated March 13, 2026
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The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
Wood, Gordon S.
Paper Book
"I cannot remember ever reading a work of history and biography that is quite so fluent, so perfectly composed and balanced . . ." --The New York Sun "Exceptionally rich perspective on one of the most accomplished, complex, and unpredictable Americans of his own time or...
General George Washington : a military life
Lengel, Edward G.
Paper Book
Much has been written in the past two centuries about George Washington the statesman and “father of his country.” Less often discussed is Washington’s military career, including his exploits as a young officer and his performance as the Revolutionary War commander in chief. Now,...
Alexander Hamilton
Chernow, Ron.
Paper Book
The #1 New York Times bestseller, and the inspiration for the hit Broadway musical Hamilton! Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn...
Thomas Jefferson : an intimate history
Brodie, Fawn McKay
Paper Book
Here for the first time we meet Jefferson as a man of feeling and passion. With a novelist's skill and meticulous scholarship, Fawn M. Brodie shows Jefferson as he wrestled with issues of revolution, religion, power, race, and love-ambivalences that exerted a subtle but powerful influence on his...
John Adams
McCullough, David G.
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling biography of America's founding father and second president that was the basis for the acclaimed HBO series, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. In this powerful, epic biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous...
James Madison
Brookhiser, Richard.
Paper Book
James Madison led one of the most influential and prolific lives in American history, and his story--although all too often overshadowed by his more celebrated contemporaries--is integral to that of the nation. Madison helped to shape our country as perhaps no other Founder: collaborating on...
Thomas Paine and the clarion call for American independence
Unger, Harlow G.
Paper Book
Thomas Paine's words were like no others in history: they leaped off the page, inspiring readers to change their lives, their governments, their kings, and even their gods. In an age when spoken and written words were the only forms of communication, Paine's aroused men to action like no one else...
Abigail Adams
Holton, Woody.
Paper Book
In this vivid new biography of abigail adams, the most illustrious woman of America's founding era, prize-winning historian Woody Holton offers a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams's life story and of women's roles in the creation of the republic.Using previously overlooked documents from a host of...
Robert Morris : financier of the American Revolution
Rappleye, Charles.
Paper Book
In this biography, the acclaimed author of Sons of Providence, winner of the 2007 George Wash- ington Book Prize, recovers an immensely important part of the founding drama of the country in the story of Robert Morris, the man who financed Washington’s armies and the American Revolution...
Founding brothers : the revolutionary generation
Ellis, Joseph J.
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A landmark work of history explores how a group of greatly gifted but deeply flawed individuals--Hamilton, Burr, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, and Madison--confronted the overwhelming challenges before them to set the course for...

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