Separately they were formidable - together they were unstoppable. Despite their intriguing lives and the impact they had on their community, the story of R.J. Reynolds and Katharine Smith Reynolds has never been fully told. Michele Gillespie provides a sweeping account of how R. J. and Katharine succeeded in realizing their American dreams.

MICHELE GILLESPIE is a professor of history and dean of the undergraduate college at Wake Forest University. She is also author of Free Labor in an Unfree World: White Artisans in Slaveholding Georgia, 1789-1860 (Georgia) and co-editor of ten books, including North Carolina Women: Their Lives and Times (Georgia).