I’m thinking about changing how I manage this blog, meaning changing my own personal expectations when it comes to writing about the books I read. I take notes while reading each biography, in the hopes that I will refer back to them and compose organized, well-written and thought-out blog posts in a timely manner after completing the books. If anyone has been following along, those well-thought-out posts are scattered and rare and almost never completed in a timely manner. Here I am again, having completed the book months ago and still not written a blog post. Because I want to it to be “scholarly reflection” quality, like back in my grad-school or museum-interning days, but in my current life situation, that motivation is lacking (not impossible, mind you, for any museum hiring managers who may be reading; I am still a fabulous and accomplished writer when presented with the right motivation and focused time). I’m now starting to think that a sentence or a few sentences to summarize the most compelling thing I learned from a book might have to suffice. Maybe with some rambling thoughts to go along with it. Maybe even that minimalist approach won’t be enough to get this writing-averse blogger online to publish something within a week or so of completing a book. But maybe it’s worth a shot.
With that caveat, Bumgarner’s biography on Sarah Childress Polk is rather direct about the fact that Mrs. Polk was more actively influential in the policy work of the President than any First Lady before her. Mrs. Polk actually served as President Polk’s personal secretary, so she was privy to pretty much everything that came across his desk. Apparently, President Polk was a workaholic who was actually rather weak health-wise and likely could not have performed the work of president without the assistance of his wife, whose advice he not only respected but solicited. So, when it comes to the Mexican-American war, looks like we have more than just one Polk to blame for our colonizing aggression.
Yet, Bumgarner’s brief biography of Sarah Childress Polk is not the best biography I have ever read. It struggles with a tendency to want to tell amusing or interesting anecdotes that all seem terribly disconnected from each other, any overarching argument, and the general context of the time. So, while I certainly learned things, I often found myself baffled at why I was learning them, why I was being told this particular nugget of information at any given moment, and what it was supposed to tell me about the Polks as people within American history.
