American Queen (Oller)

American Queen:  The Rise and Fall of Kate Chase Sprague—Civil War "Belle of the North" and Gilded Age Woman of Scandal
John Oller, 2014
Da Capo Press
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780306822803


Summary
Had Peoplee magazine been around during the Civil War and after, Kate Chase would have made its "Most Beautiful" and "Most Intriguing" lists every year.

The charismatic daughter of Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s treasury secretary, Kate Chase enjoyed unprecedented political power for a woman. As her widowed father’s hostess, she set up a rival "court" against Mary Lincoln in hopes of making her father president and herself his First Lady.

To facilitate that goal, she married one of the richest men in the country, the handsome "boy governor" of Rhode Island, in the social event of the Civil War. She moved easily between the worlds of high fashion, adorning herself in the most regal Parisian gowns, and politics, managing her father's presidential campaigns. "No Queen has ever reigned under the Stars and Stripes," one newspaper would write, "but this remarkable woman came closer to being a Queen than any American woman has."

But when William Sprague turned out to be less of a prince as a husband, Kate found comfort in the arms of a powerful married senator. The ensuing sex scandal ended her virtual royalty; after the marriage crumbled and the money disappeared, she was left only with her children and her ever-proud bearing. She became a social outcast and died in poverty, yet in her final years she would find both greater authenticity and the inner peace that had always eluded her.

Kate Chase’s dramatic story is one of ambition and tragedy, set against the seductive allure of the Civil War and Gilded Age, involving some of the most famous personalities in American history. In this beautifully written and meticulously researched biography, drawing on much unpublished material, John Oller captures the extraordinary life of a woman who was a century ahead of her time. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Huron, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., Ohio State University; J.D., Georgetown University
• Currently—lives in both New York City and California


John Oller trained as a lawyer, becoming a litigator for a New York law firm and representing major league baseball figures, (most famously Pete Rose), as well as other corporate and commercial interests.

While practicing law, he wrote books in his off hours. His first, Jean Arthur: The Actress Nobody Knew, was published in 1977. In 2011, Oller made the decision to retire from law and devote himself to writing full-time.

Since then, he has published An All-American Murder (e-book), based on an actual murder in Columbus, Ohio, in 1975. In 2014 he published American Queen, the biography of Civil War era Kate Chase Sprague, the daughter of Salmon Chase (one of Lincoln's "team of rivals") and a famous Washington belle.

When not writing, John pursues his hobbies of golf, theater, film, and travel. He divides his time between New York City and a home in California wine country. (Adapted from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
In other hands such a story might have had more dimension; but although Oller has explored previous biographies (none recent) and a plethora of archives and family testimony, his account is too full of anachronistic cliches (Kate’s father wishes to "get her out of his hair," a cotton ­trader is "no dummy," Kate’s divorce petition is "a doozy"), too cumbered by undigested political minutiae, too hampered by explicatory backtracking to develop the kind of narrative sweep and psychological depth that make for fully satisfying biography.
Amanda Vaill - New York Times Book Review


[N]uanced and finely balanced.... The title for Oller's book echoes the one used in 2001 for a biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by Sarah Bradford, America's Queen. Like the wife of John F. Kennedy, Chase was the epitome of elegance for Americans of her era, described as a "magnificent creature" and "the most splendid woman at the present time" and "the acknowledged queen of fashion and good taste."
Patrick T. Reardon - Chicago Times


Oller commands his sources in a riveting narrative that is all the more persuasive because he does not make large claims for his subject. It is enough, he realizes, for a biography to portray and assess a remarkable human being—one who struggled with and overcame many of the confining conventions of her age—in her own terms.
Carl Rollyson - Minneapolis Star-Tribune


Oller details [Kate Chase] Sprague’s fascinating life, introducing readers to an inspiring woman in spite of her faults.... The book’s analysis may not be well enough grounded in fact, verging on the speculative at times, but otherwise, Oller offers an accessible, attention-grabbing work.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) The author takes us through his subject's life as she moves from a high-class social butterfly...to a poverty-stricken divorcee.... Well written, fast paced, and with a compelling attention to detail, this work should be a fascinating read for Civil War buffs, fans of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals (in which Salmon Chase is a main character). —Laura Marcus, Odenton, MD
Library Journal


Oller's work is less the story of a woman's political rise and fall and more one that reveals how the social limitations of the past created tragic outcomes for talented females. A well-researched, thoughtful biography of a woman who "became entirely her own person, a rare feat for women of her day."
Kirkus Reviews

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