Catherine Allgor makes a compelling argument that not all of America’s founders were men. The associate professor of history at the University of California, Riverside, will make the case for one woman at Sweet Briar College on Friday, Feb. 9.

Allgor will sign copies of and lecture on her second book, “A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation,” at 8 p.m. in Memorial Chapel. Admission is free and open to the public.

Courtesy of Henry Holt and Co.Dolley Madison, wife of fourth U.S. president James Madison, was a master politician and a great unifier when the country desperately needed one during the War of 1812, Allgor says.

According to the historian, saving George Washington’s portrait from the White House before it was torched by British troops is the least of her contributions in that conflict, albeit an emblematic one.

Madison grasped the symbolism of allowing Washington’s image, though only a copy of Gilbert Stuart’s famous painting, to fall into British hands, Allgor writes in the book.

More importantly, Madison was able to do what her husband could not. She used her personality to assure a young, war-riven nation that the Madison administration — which was not governing well — was the right one to lead it through the crisis.

“ … she used the persona of a lady motivated solely by feminine love and patriotism to create a sense of nationality and unity for the new Americans,” Allgor writes.

Madison also “built the structures of government” through parties, social calls and correspondence that formed coalitions and alliances to overcome contentious political divisions.

Catherine Allgor will lecture on Dolley Madison. Photo by Franz Moeller.“Dolley was the first [first lady] to figure out what could be done in the social sphere,” Allgor said in a telephone interview from her UCR office.

For James Madison and his contemporaries, patronage and favoritism were anathema to their republican ideals. But, Allgor argues that some backroom politics are necessary to govern effectively and that women of the time were freer to employ such devices than their husbands, who were elected to office. “James couldn’t influence-peddle, but she could,” Allgor said.

The pretty, smart and charismatic Dolley did so with great effect, forging a model of bipartisanship that others would follow. In the process, she also established the idea of the president’s wife as the steward of the White House. “[What] we think of as the first lady’s job came with Dolley,” Allgor said.

Allgor, who won a Society for Historians of the Early American Republic award for her first book, “Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government,” promises more than a dry history lecture during her visit to Sweet Briar.

“I hope to make a good case for Dolley’s historical significance, but also give a good sense of who she was so we can enjoy an evening with Dolley,” Allgor said.

She issued a challenge, too.

“I’ll have some good Dolley stories,” she said. “And I love the question-and-answer period. I’m expecting my Virginia audience to have great questions.”

This event is the first in a series of three women’s history lectures at Sweet Briar College in honor of Jamestown 2007.

Cynthia Kierner, professor of history at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, will lecture on “Martha Jefferson Randolph: Virginian,” at 8 p.m. March 1 in Memorial Chapel. On April 26, Temple University professor of history Elizabeth Varon will present “Gendered Strife and Disunion: A New Look at the Origins of the Civil War” at 8 p.m. at the Elston Inn Conference Center.

For more information, please e-mail kchavigny@sbc.edu or call (434) 381-6234.

– By Jennifer McManamay, SBC staff writer