Michele Gillespie is a professor of history at Wake Forest University, USA. She is author or coeditor of ten previous books, including Katharine and R. J. Reynolds: Partners of Fortune in the Making of the New South (Georgia) and Free Labor in an Unfree World: White Artisans in Slaveholding Georgia, 1789 - 1860 (Georgia).
In this well-researched joint biography of entrepreneur Richard Joshua Reynolds (RJR) and businesswoman Katharine Smith Reynolds, Michele Gillespie traces the rise of a husband and wife from the ranks of the middling sort to positions of great wealth and power. . . . The author takes care to situate the couple in the economic, political, and social currents of their time, and Gillespie's diligence in this regard informs readers about southern history and conveys appreciation for the lives of the couple.--Julia Kirk Blackwelder Journal of Southern History