For readers ofNever CaughtandYou Never Forget Your First, a revealing true story of celebrity, race and the children George Washington raised.

While its widely known that George and Martha Washington never had children of their own, few are aware that they raised children together. InFirst Family, we see Washington as a father figure and are introduced to the children he helped raise, tracing their complicated roles in American history.

The children of Martha Washingtons son by her first marriageEliza, Patty, Nelly and Wash Custiswere born into life in the public eye, well-known as George Washingtons family and keepers of his legacy. By turns petty and powerful, glamorous and cruel, the Custises used Washington as a means to enhance their own power and status. As enslavers committed to the American empire, the Custis family embodied the failures of the American experiment that finally exploded into civil warall the while being celebrities in a soap opera of their own making.

First Familybrings new focus and attention to this surprisingly neglected aspect of George Washingtons life and legacy, shedding a light on:

• What it meant to be a family
• The complexities of kinship and race in the Custis family
• Political power, fame, and the obsession with the celebrity
• The Custises probable Black half-sibling

As the country grapples with concerns about political dynasties and the public role of presidential families, the saga of Washingtons family offers a human story of historical precedent. Award-winning historian Cassandra A. Good shows how the outspoken step-grandchildren of George Washington played an overlooked but important role in the development of American society and politics from the Revolution to the Civil War.