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...
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
With a novelist's skill and a scholar's meticulous detail, Fawn M. Brodie portrays Thomas Jefferson as he wrestled with the great issues of his time: revolution, religion, power, race, and love--ambivalences that exerted a subtle but powerful influence on his political ideas and his presidency. Far...
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...
Abigail Adams
Holton, Woody.
Paper Book
Winner of the Bancroft Prize The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice American Heritage, Best of 2009 In this vivid new biography of Abigail Adams, the most illustrious woman of America's founding era, Bancroft Award-winning...
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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