Daniel Smith Donelson was the grandson of two of early Middle Tennessee’s most famous founders—John Donelson and Daniel Smith—and nephew of Tennessee’s perhaps most famous soldier statesman, Andrew Jackson. And while Civil War historians are familiar with Donelson because he led a Confederate brigade, his namesake fort in Middle Tennessee, and his importance to the war effort as he transitioned into Confederate war administration, Donelson the significant son of Tennessee has eluded a full study, and no book-length biography has been published, until now.
Unfortunately, Daniel Smith Donelson left no body of papers, which leaves any biographers, as Richard Douglas Spence contends, to approach their subject through a “historical back door” via Donelson’s legendary uncle and his brother, Andrew Jackson Donelson, who enjoyed a significant political career in his own right. Spence’s biography begins with Donelson’s upbringing at the Hermitage after Donelson’s father died when he was three. From there Spence follows Donelson’s career as a planter, militiaman, state congressman, Civil War general, and finally an administrator overseeing the Confederate Department of East Tennessee. Fort Donelson was named in his honor, and his brigades fought at Cheat Mountain, Perryville, and Murfreesboro (Stones River). He was posthumously promoted to major general after dying of disease on April 17, 1863, at the age of sixty-one.
Spence’s approach reveals aspects of Donelson’s life and career that in many ways rival his Civil War record for importance, providing fresh perspectives on Jackson’s tumultuous presidency and the contentious nature of antebellum politics in Tennessee.
Illinois Democratic politics has recently produced the most skilled and inspirational politician in memory . . . and has also reminded us of the need for further reform. It is fitting, then, that the latest installment of the Chicago Lives series turns to Dawn Clark Netsch, a leading reformer of Illinois politics since the 1950s and the first woman major party nominee for governor of Illinois.
Netsch was a pioneer, or the first of her gender, in almost every endeavor she undertook. From the very beginning of her career, when she led the move to desegregate Northwestern University's undergraduate dorms, her passion for social justice extended beyond the rights of women to rights for racial minorities and those of all sexual orientations. Bowman charts Dawn Clark Netsch's remarkable political career, from her work behind the scenes as assistant to Governor Otto Kerner and as a participant in the 1970 Constitutional Convention to her later service in elected office, first as Illinois state senator for eighteen years and later as Illinois comptroller, and culminating in her historic run for governor in 1994. Throughout, Netsch lost neither her genteel yet unpretentious demeanor, nor her passion for progressive politics as exemplified by her early mentor, Governor Adlai E. Stevenson.
Methodism in the public and private lives of the politician
After more than forty contentious years in the public eye, Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the best-known political figures in the nation. Yet the strong religious faith at the heart of her politics and personal life often remains confounding, if not mysterious, to longtime observers. Even many of her admirers would be surprised to hear Clinton state that her Methodist outlook has “been a huge part of who I am and how I have seen the world, and what I believe in, and what I have tried to do in my life.”
Gary Scott Smith’s biography of Clinton’s journey in faith begins with her Methodist upbringing in Park Ridge, Illinois, where she faithfully attended worship services, Sunday school, and youth group meetings. Like many mainline Protestants, Clinton’s spiritual commitment developed gradually throughout childhood, while her combination of missionary zeal and impressive personal talents has informed her career from the time of her pro bono work at Yale on behalf of children to the present.
Her Methodist faith has been very important to many of Clinton’s high-profile endeavors and in helping her cope with the prominent travails brought on by two presidential campaigns, never-ending conservative rancor, and her husband’s infidelity. Smith’s account examines Clinton’s faith in the context of work ranging from her 1990s pursuit of healthcare reform to a “Hillary doctrine” of foreign policy focused on her longtime goal of providing basic human rights for children and women--a project she saw as essential to United States security. The result is an enlightening reconsideration of an extraordinary political figure who has defied private doubts and public controversy to live by John Wesley’s dictum: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”
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