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Steve Inskeep tells the riveting story of John and Jessie Fr\\xe9mont, the husband and wife team who in the 1800s were instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States, and thus became America\\u2019s first great political couple
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\\nJohn C. Fr\\xe9mont, one of the United States\\u2019s leading explorers of the nineteenth century, was relatively unknown in 1842, when he commanded the first of his expeditions to the uncharted West. But in only a few years, he was one of the most acclaimed people of the age \\u2013 known as a wilderness explorer, bestselling writer, gallant army officer, and latter-day conquistador, who in 1846 began the United States\\u2019s takeover of California from Mexico. He was not even 40 years old when Americans began naming mountains and towns after him. He had perfect timing, exploring the West just as it captured the nation\\u2019s attention. But the most important factor in his fame may have been the person who made it all possible: his wife, Jessie Benton Fr\\xe9mont.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Inskeep is a cohost of NPR\\u2019s Morning Edition, the most widely heard radio program in the United States, and of NPR\\u2019s Up First, one of the nation\\u2019s most popular podcasts. His reporting has taken him across the United States, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, Pakistan, and China. His search for the full story behind the news has led him to history; he is the author of Instant City: Life and Death in Karachi and Jacksonland: President Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Chief John Ross, and a Great American Land Grab, both published by Penguin Press.