Abigail Adams

American educator, writer, and feminist

• Born: November 22, 1744
• Birthplace: Weymouth, Massachusetts
• Died: October 28, 1818
• Place of death: Quincy, Massachusetts

An early proponent of humane treatment and equal education for women, Abigail Adams wrote eloquent, insightful letters that provide a detailed social history of her era and her life with John Adams.

Early Life

Abigail Adams, born Abigail Smith, was one of four children of William Smith, minister of North Parish Congregational Church of Weymouth, and Elizabeth (Quincy) Smith from nearby Braintree, Massachusetts. Both parents were members of prominent New England families of merchants, statesmen, and ministers. From her parents, Abigail learned a conservative, rational Puritanism. She retained throughout her life a solid Christian faith and shared with her Puritan forebears a belief in the fundamental depravity of humankind. These religious convictions influenced her political opinions.

Observing her mother’s example, Abigail learned her future roles as wife and mother, duties instilled in girls from an early age during this time in American history. As a minister’s wife, Elizabeth Smith provided relief for the town’s poor, nursed the town’s sick, and presented herself as a model wife. She was nurturing and kind to her children.

In eighteenth century Massachusetts, education was prized. In government-supported schools, boys studied Latin, Greek, French, mathematics, and literary arts in preparation for higher education either at Harvard College or abroad. Girls, however, were educated almost exclusively at home, receiving only rudimentary training in reading and writing; some remained illiterate. They learned domestic skills such as sewing, fine needlework, and cooking, which were considered vital preparation for marriage. Abigail received only informal home instruction yet shared with her sisters the advantage of a keen intellect and unlimited access to her father’s extensive library.

In her early adolescence, Abigail was encouraged in her studies by a young watchmaker and scholar, Richard Cranch. Although self-educated, Cranch conveyed his passion for scholarship to Abigail and to her sisters Mary and Elizabeth. It was through Cranch, who wedded Mary, that Abigail met her future husband.

Abigail proved a shrewd judge of character when at the age of nineteen she married Harvard-educated lawyerJohn Adams. Although they were not social equals—he was from a markedly less prominent family and practiced a profession that was poorly regarded—the match proved exceedingly profitable and satisfying for both parties. In John, Abigail found a man who appreciated and even encouraged her forthrightness and her intellectual ability, while John in turn received emotional, financial, and intellectual support from Abigail.

Life’s Work

Abigail Adams is best known for her remarkably detailed, eloquent letters. Although many creative outlets were considered unsuitable for women to pursue, letter writing was a socially sanctioned literary art for women in the eighteenth century. Abigail, who felt compelled to write, naturally selected that medium.

During her first ten years of marriage, however, Abigail’s letter writing was not prolific as she was kept extraordinarily busy with domestic affairs. Enduring five pregnancies in seven years, she also suffered the death of an infant daughter. In addition, she was plagued by several physical afflictions including frequent colds, rheumatism that caused acute swelling of her joints, and insomnia.

During these early years, she moved her household several times to remain with John in his work. The turmoil of their lives as they uprooted their family paralleled the contemporary political events in which John played a leading role. This was a pattern they would repeat throughout his working life and would include residences in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Paris, and London. Abigail demonstrated repeatedly that she was extraordinarily adaptable and found pleasure in observing foreign customs. She always, however, longed for the idealized pastoral life in Braintree that she had shared with John during their first few years of marriage.

In 1775, John embarked for Congress on the first of frequent extended absences from Abigail. With her husband away, Abigail weathered several personal tragedies, including a difficult pregnancy in 1777, during which she apparently suffered from toxemia and finally eclampsia, a condition that is usually fatal to the infant and often to the mother. A remarkable series of letters were written between John and Abigail during this period; in them, Abigail expressed loneliness and fear for her unborn child. The child, a girl, was indeed stillborn. John and Abigail’s letters provide invaluable information on the social history of parent-and-child relationships.

The pattern of intimate and frequent letters continued over the next twenty-five years as John, an extraordinarily ambitious man, accepted political positions that removed him from home for periods often extending to years. While Abigail considered their separation as a patriotic sacrifice, she nevertheless frequently expressed her loneliness to John, imploring him to return home.

Because she was a married woman, Abigail was legally prevented from owning property in her own name. Notwithstanding, she repeatedly demonstrated her ingenuity and self-sufficiency. During their first ten years together, John’s legal fees and the income from their farm supported the family. As events took him farther from home, his legal practice was largely abandoned and Abigail assumed most financial duties. She never welcomed the addition to her already burdensome domestic responsibilities, yet she consistently proved herself a competent manager. Abigail deplored debt and worked to ensure that her family avoided it. She successfully ran the farm for four years during which she was responsible for the odious chore of collecting rents from several tenants as well as supervising agricultural production. Scarcity of labor and acute inflation made the task a difficult one. After four years, she lessened her burden by renting the farm.

In 1778, Abigail began requesting luxury goods from John, who was then serving as a diplomat in France. She then profitably sold these items, which, because of war shortages and inflation, were scarce in Massachusetts. At the same time, Abigail also purchased land and speculated in currency. Through these endeavors, she kept her family solvent.

During the ten years in which she saw her husband only sporadically, Abigail expanded her literary interests, exploring, partly through John’s guidance, political theory, biography, and history. She also wrote voluminously, to John, to other family members, and to friends. It was during this period that Abigail wrote to John of her political views regarding women’s roles in the new nation. Her famous letter of March 31, 1776, in which she requested John to “Remember the Ladies,” has established Abigail’s reputation as an early proponent of women’s rights. In context, however, it is clear that Abigail wrote not of political rights per se but of women’s legal rights, specifically those that guaranteed them protection from physical abuse. At the time, divorce, although allowed in a few extreme instances, was generally unavailable. In addition, women abrogated all rights to property ownership upon marriage, which in turn made them ineligible to vote because property ownership was a key qualification for voting.

Abigail also advocated equal education for women. She argued for equal education within the context of her perception of women’s traditional domestic roles. The concept of “Republican motherhood” held that because women taught the sons who were destined to become leaders, women had an important role in maintaining the existence of an informed citizenry capable of supporting a republican government. To teach their sons successfully, these women required an education equal to that of boys and men, which Abigail hoped would be supported by law.

Although she is now considered an early advocate of women’s rights, Abigail saw her own life as highly traditional. An adept manager of her family’s resources, she nevertheless viewed her role as currency speculator, land purchaser, and farmer as aberrant and a patriotic sacrifice. She was comfortable only, it seems, in her domestic role, and in that, as in all else, she excelled. Abigail lived to see her son John Quincy establish a successful diplomatic and political career. Several personal tragedies marred her happiness, including the death of her son Charles from alcoholism when he was thirty years old and her daughter Nabby’s brutally painful mastectomy and subsequent death from breast cancer.

Until 1800, when John retired from government office, Abigail functioned at times as host during his several years as a diplomat, first in England, then in France. She also served two terms as the vice president’s wife during the George Washington administration and finally as First Lady during her husband’s presidency from 1797 to 1801.

During the last eighteen years of her life she retired with her husband to Quincy (formerly Braintree) and lived in relative domestic peace surrounded by children, grandchildren, sisters, nieces, and nephews. At the family’s Quincy farm, Abigail pursued her lifelong hobby of gardening. Dying of typhoid fever in 1818, she was mourned by John, who, lamenting the loss of his “dearest friend,” survived his wife by eight years.

Significance

Abigail Adams always functioned within the prescribed social roles for women of her time. She was an affectionate, protective mother who cared for her children physically and emotionally her entire life. She provided intellectual and emotional companionship as well as financial support for her brilliant but irascible husband John Adams. Although Abigail for a time functioned as merchant, farmer, and speculator, she viewed these roles as a patriotic sacrifice to support the political career of her husband.

While her own marriage provided her intellectual and emotional satisfaction, she condemned the tyranny of men over women and longed for legal protection for women. Women’s education she hoped would one day rival that of men. She also yearned for the day when women would be able to limit the number of children they had. Nevertheless, her life must be viewed within the context of her eighteenth century world, where she functioned primarily within the domestic sphere. She was not a public advocate for women’s rights; the term “women’s rights” was not even used in her time. Yet, she did not view her role within her marriage as less valuable than that of her husband. To Abigail and to John, marriage was a true partnership.

She was a supremely shrewd, able woman who took every advantage available to her to expand her intellectual horizons, and she enjoyed a wide correspondence through her letters. In addition to providing an idea of this remarkable woman’s psyche, Abigail Adams’s copious letters give a detailed social history of her era and details into the character of her husband and of several other political leaders, including her close friend Thomas Jefferson.

Bibliography

Adams, Abigail. The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784. Edited by L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, and Mary-Jo Kline. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002. This revised text includes a foreword by David McCullogh, author of a best-selling biography of John Adams. Abigail’s letters are her literary achievement—eloquent, informative, and illuminating.

Akers, Charles W. Abigail Adams: An American Woman. Boston: Little, Brown, 1980. Written specifically for the college undergraduate and high school student, Akers’s work is admirably detailed and readable. Abigail’s life is well grounded in historical context.

Gelles, Edith B. Portia: The World of Abigail Adams. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. An insightful biography of Adams, viewing her not only as John’s wife and John Quincy’s mother but also within the context of her domestic and predominantly female world. This work requires a knowledge of fundamental historical events, so it should be read in conjunction with a broader history, such as that of Akers. Includes an instructive introductory chapter, footnotes, a bibliography, and a chronology.

Levin, Phyllis Lee. Abigail Adams: A Biography. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. By far the most detailed biography of Adams, making extensive use of research sources. Unlike other biographers, Levin provides ample discussion of Abigail’s life during the years after John Adams’s retirement, although Levin does so against the backdrop of John Quincy’s career. Similarly, Abigail’s earlier life is viewed against John’s career. Just shy of five hundred pages, the work contains footnotes, a bibliography, and a family tree.

Nagel, Paul C. The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters, and Daughters. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. While not exclusively about Abigail, Nagel’s work is useful for placing Abigail’s life within the context of her close female relations, including her sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Despite his admiration of her intellect, Nagel provides a portrait of Adams that is largely unsympathetic, making her appear domineering.

Withey, Lynne. Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001. Withey judges Adams by twentieth century standards rather than understanding her within her historical context. The author focuses extensively on Abigail’s political views while paying scant attention to her more notable successes in her domestic roles, viewing Abigail as a “prisoner” in her world.