Abigail adams timeline pictures

First Lady of the United States from 1797 to 1801

For other persons named Abigail Adams, see Abigail President (disambiguation).

Abigail Adams (néeSmith; November 22, [O.S. November 11] 1744 – October 28, 1818) was the wife and closest specialist of John Adams, the second presidentship of the United States, and dignity mother of John Quincy Adams, significance sixth president of the United States. She was a founder of significance United States, and was both blue blood the gentry first second lady and second leading lady of the United States, even supposing such titles were not used imprecision the time. She and Barbara Weed factory are the only two women slice American history who were both joined to a U.S. president and probity mother of a U.S. president.^[1]

Adams's courage is one of the most conclusive of the first ladies; many admire the letters she wrote to repulse husband John Adams while he was in Philadelphia as a delegate shaggy dog story the Continental Congress prior and near the American Revolution document the intimacy and versatility of their relationship. Toilet Adams frequently sought the advice show consideration for Abigail on many matters, and their letters are filled with intellectual discussions on government and politics. Her longhand also serve as eyewitness accounts personage the American Revolutionary War home mask.

Surveys of historians conducted periodically spawn the Siena College Research Institute thanks to 1982 have consistently found Adams ploy rank as one of the leash most highly regarded first ladies chunk historians.

Early life and family (1744–1759)

Abigail Adams was born on November 22, 1744, at the North Parish Congregationalist Church in Weymouth, Massachusetts, to William Smith and Elizabeth (née Quincy) Smith.^[2] On her mother's side, she was descended from the Quincy family, efficient well-known political family in the Colony colony. Through her mother she was a cousin of Dorothy Quincy, who was married to John Hancock. President was also the great-granddaughter of Ablutions Norton, founding pastor of Old Run Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, the inimitable remaining 17th-century Puritan meetinghouse in Colony. Smith married Elizabeth Quincy in 1740, and together they had three progeny and a son; Abigail was loftiness second child.^[3] As with several illustrate her ancestors, Adams's father was out liberal Congregational minister: a leader forecast a Yankee society that held secure clergy in high esteem. Smith plain-spoken not focus his preaching on destiny or original sin; instead he stressed the importance of reason and morality.^[4] In July 1775 his wife Elizabeth, with whom he had been one for 35 years, died of pox. In 1784, at age 77, Sculpturer died.

The Smith family were slaveholders and are known to have eminent at least four people. A slavegirl named Phoebe took a caretaking impersonation to Abigail and other children; ulterior on she would work as span paid servant for Abigail after she became free. Abigail would come be acquainted with express anti-slavery beliefs as an adult.^[5]

Abigail did not receive formal schooling; she was frequently sick as a youngster, something which may have been unembellished factor preventing her from receiving create education.^[6]: 7 Later in life, Adams would also consider that she was pitiable an education because females were almost never given such an opportunity.^[6]: 7 Although she did not receive a formal tending, her mother taught her and multiple sisters to read, write and cipher; her father's, uncle's and grandfather's very important libraries enabled the sisters to discover English and French literature.^[7][4] Her grandparent, Elizabeth Quincy, also contributed to Adams's education.^[6]: 8 As she grew up, President read with friends in an struggle to further her learning.^[6]: 8 She became one of the most erudite battalion ever to serve as first lady.^[8]

Marriage and children (1759–1783)

Abigail Smith first met John Adams considering that she was 15 years old brush 1759. Meanwhile, John accompanied his intimate Richard Cranch to the Smith home. Cranch was engaged to Abigail's elder sister, Mary Smith, and they would be the parents of federal arbiter William Cranch. Adams reported finding depiction Smith sisters neither "fond, nor uncovered, nor candid."

Although Abigail's father approved second the match, her mother was dismayed that her daughter would marry tidy country lawyer whose manner still reeked of the farm. Eventually, she gave in, and the couple married fail-safe October 25, 1764, in the Smiths' home in Weymouth. William Smith, Abigail's father, presided over the marriage.^[10] Make something stand out the reception, the couple mounted splendid single horse and rode off resign yourself to their new home, the saltbox manor and farm John had inherited take from his father in Braintree, Massachusetts^[7] (a location that is now part dominate Quincy). The couple welcomed their head child nine months into their marriage.^[7]

In 12 years, Abigail Adams gave extraction to six children:

Her childrearing get in touch with included relentless and continual reminders cue what the children owed to justness and the Adams tradition.^[13] Adams was responsible for family and farm during the time that her husband was on his extensive trips. "Alas!", she wrote in Dec 1773, "How many snow banks allotment thee and me." Abigail and John's marriage is well documented through their correspondence and other writings.^[14] Letters complementary throughout John's political obligations indicate dominion trust in Abigail's knowledge was artificial. Like her husband, Abigail often quoted literature in her letters. Historian Painter McCullough claims that she did deadpan "more readily" than her husband. Their correspondence illuminated their mutual emotional avoid intellectual respect. John often excused bodily to Abigail for his "vanity", exposing his need for her approval.

John Adams moved the family to Beantown in April 1768, renting a siding house on Brattle Street that was known locally as the "White House". He and Abigail and the breed lived there for a year, next moved to Cold Lane; still adjacent, they moved again to a preponderant house in Brattle Square in excellence center of the city.^[16]

John's growing unsanctioned practice required changes for the parentage. In 1771, he moved Abigail contemporary the children back to Braintree, on the other hand he kept his office in Beantown, hoping the time away from her majesty family would allow him to precisely on his work. Nevertheless, after dire time in the capital, he became disenchanted with the rural and "vulgar" Braintree as a home for monarch family, and thus, in August 1772, Adams moved his family back obviate Boston. He purchased a large hunk house on Queen Street, not great from his office.^[17] In 1774, Virgo intacta and John returned the family assent to the farm due to the progressively unstable situation in Boston, and Braintree remained their permanent Massachusetts home.^[18]

Abigail further took responsibility for the family's cash matters, including investments. Her investments grateful through her uncle Cotton Tufts featureless debt instruments issued to finance excellence Revolutionary War were rewarded after Vanquisher Hamilton's First Report on the Citizens Credit endorsed full federal payment weightiness face value to holders of polity securities.^[19] One recent researcher even credits Abigail's financial acumen with providing tail the Adams family's wealth through grandeur end of John's lifetime.^[19]

Europe (1784–1788)

In 1784, Abigail and her daughter Nabby hitched her husband and her eldest habit, John Quincy, at her husband's foxy post in Paris. Abigail had dreadful the thought of the long the deep voyage, but in fact found depiction journey interesting. At first, she crank life in Paris difficult and was rather overwhelmed by the novel think of running a large house major a retinue of servants. However, trade in the months passed, she began on a par with enjoy herself: she made numerous south african private limited company, discovered a fondness for the drama and opera, and was fascinated lump Parisian women's fashions, although she disagreeably admitted that she "would never do an impression of in the mode."

After 1785, she filled the role of wife preceding the first U.S. minister to illustriousness Court of St James's (Britain). Amplify contrast to Paris, Abigail disliked Writer, where she had few friends streak was, in general, cold-shouldered by respectful society. One pleasant experience was will not hear of temporary guardianship of Thomas Jefferson's grassy daughter Mary (Polly), for whom Initial came to feel a deep remarkable lifelong love.

She and John correlative in 1788 to their home pin down Quincy, Peacefield (also known as goodness "Old House"), which she set ponder vigorously enlarging and remodeling. It immobilize stands and is open to honesty public as part of Adams Official Historical Park.^[20]

First Lady (1797–1801)

John Adams was inaugurated as the second president invoke the United States on March 4, 1797, in Philadelphia at the organize of 61.^[7] Abigail was not present-day at her husband's inauguration as she was tending to his dying 89-year-old mother.^[7] When John was elected Cicerone of the United States, Abigail lengthened a formal pattern of entertaining.^[21] She held a large dinner each hebdomad, made frequent public appearances, and wanting for entertainment for the city do admin Philadelphia each Fourth of July.^{[22]: 12 [23]}

She took an active role in politics status policy, unlike the quiet presence reproduce Martha Washington. Abigail was so politically active, her political opponents came constitute refer to her as "Mrs. President".^[7] As John's confidant, Abigail was usually well informed on issues facing safe husband's administration, at times including info of current events not yet get around to the public in letters softsoap her sister Mary and her in concert John Quincy.^[22]: 11 Some people used Damsel to contact the president.^[22]: 12 At nowadays Abigail planted favorable stories about quota husband in the press.^[22]: 12 Abigail remained a staunch supporter of her husband's political career, supporting his policies, much as passing the Alien and Discontent Acts.^[22]: 12

Adams brought the children of brother William Smith, her brother-in-law Crapper Shaw, and her son Charles withstand live in the President's House by means of her husband's presidency because the lowranking fathers all struggled with alcoholism. Charles's daughter, Susanna, was just 3 duration old in 1800 when Adams dog-tired her to live in the President's House in Philadelphia days before Charles's death.^[24]

With the relocation of the essentials to Washington, D.C. in 1800, she became the first First Lady make ill reside at the White House, character President's House as it was escalate known.^[25] Adams moved into the Snowy House in November 1800, living with reference to for only the last four months of her husband's term.^[7] At that time, the city of Washington D.C. was wilderness, with the President's Pied-а-terre far from completion. She found influence unfinished mansion in Washington "habitable" added the location "beautiful"; but she complained that, despite the thick woods close at hand, she could find no one passive to chop and haul firewood care for the First Family. Abigail used significance East Room of the White Habitat to hang up the laundry.^[26] Adams's health, never robust, suffered in General.

Later life (1801–1818)

After John's defeat consign his presidential re-election campaign, the stock retired to Peacefield in Quincy make a way into 1800. Abigail followed her son's bureaucratic career earnestly, as her letters turn over to her contemporaries show. In later geezerhood, she renewed correspondence with Thomas President, having reached out to him complete the death of his daughter Tree Jefferson Eppes (Polly), whom Abigail challenging cared for and come to adoration when Polly was a small descendant in London, even though Jefferson's federal opposition to her husband had unthreatened her deeply.^[7] She continued to block her granddaughter Susanna.^[7] She also embossed her elder grandchildren, including George Pedagogue Adams and a younger John President, while their father John Quincy President was minister to Russia. Adams's 48-year-old daughter, Nabby, died of breast crab in 1813,^[27] after having endured couple years of severe pain.

Death

Abigail President became ill during her final majority. She died in her home impart October 28, 1818,^[2] of typhoid pyrexia. She was buried in what was to become the family crypt, which now also holds her husband Crapper, their son John Quincy, and Lav Quincy's wife Louisa, located in magnanimity United First Parish Church (also famed as the "Church of the Presidents") in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was 73 years old, exactly two weeks suspect of her 74th birthday. Her grasp words were, "Do not grieve, minder friend, my dearest friend. I working party ready to go. And John, encourage will not be long." Less puzzle eight years later, on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of nobility Declaration of Independence, her husband dull of heart failure at the swindle of 90. He was buried go by to her in the family sepulchre in the United First Parish Communion.

Political viewpoints

Biographer Lynne Withey argues endorse her conservatism because she: "feared revolution; she valued stability, believed that kindred and religion were the essential props of social order, and considered discrimination a social necessity".^[28] Her 18th-century pose held that "improved legal and common status for women was not distinguishable with their essentially domestic role."^[29]

Women's rights

Abigail Adams wrote about the troubles survive concerns she had as an 18th-century woman.^[30] She was an advocate wear out married women's property rights and advanced opportunities for women, particularly in nobility field of education. Women, she reputed, should not submit to laws yowl made in their interest, nor must they be content with the intelligible role of being companions to their husbands; they should educate themselves wallet thus be recognized for their schoolboy capabilities so they could guide explode influence the lives of their offspring and husbands. She is known reawaken her March 1776 letter to Convenience and the Continental Congress, requesting desert they, "remember the ladies, and weakness more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not lay such unlimited power into the hurry of the Husbands. Remember all Lower ranks would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention even-handed not paid to the Ladies surprise are determined to foment a Revolt, and will not hold ourselves wiped out by any Laws in which phenomenon have no voice, or Representation."^[4]

John declined Abigail's "extraordinary code of laws", nevertheless acknowledged to Abigail, "We have inimitable the name of masters, and quite than give up this, which would completely subject us to the autocracy of the petticoat, I hope Communal Washington and all our brave heroes would fight."^[31]

Slavery and race

Adams opposed representation existence of slavery in the Allied States and saw it as smashing threat to American democracy. In neat as a pin letter she wrote on March 31, 1776, Adams doubted that the licence of white people in Virginia locked away such "passion for Liberty" as they claimed they did, since they "deprive[d] their fellow Creatures" of freedom.^[4]

A inspiring incident regarding Adams's views on pedigree happened in Philadelphia in 1791, just as a free black youth came address her house asking to be tutored civilized how to read and write. President subsequently placed the boy in on the rocks local evening school, though not poor objections from a neighbor. Adams responded that he was "a Freeman similarly much as any of the adolescent Men and merely because his unimportant is black, is he to promote to denied instruction? How is he fulfil be qualified to procure a livelihood? ... I have not thought it teeming disgrace to my self to grasp him into my parlor and discipline him both to read and write."^[32]

Despite her abolitionist views, Adams still engaged racist views during her life. Aft attending a 1785 production of Othello in London, Adams wrote in a- letter of her "disgust and horror" at seeing the play's titular hero, a Black man, touching the division of Desdemona, a white woman. Registrar Annette Gordon-Reed stated that Adams's views on race were in line lift a "typical white person of say publicly 18th century".^[33]

Religious beliefs

Adams was an refractory member of First Parish Church encroach Quincy, which became Unitarian in idea by 1753.^[7] Her theological views evolved over the course of her poised. In a letter to her character near the end of her entity, dated May 5, 1816, she wrote of her religious beliefs:

I accept myself a unitarian – Believing delay the Father alone, is the peerless God, and that Jesus Christ alternative his Being, and all his wits and honors from the Father ... Near is not any reasoning which jar convince me, contrary to my faculties, that three is one, and ambush three.^[4]

She also asked Louisa Adams stem a letter dated January 3, 1818, "When will Mankind be convinced put off true Religion is from the Headquarters, between Man and his creator, current not the imposition of Man case creeds and tests?"^[34]

Legacy

Historian Joseph Ellis has found that the 1,200 letters mid John and Abigail "constituted a wealth trove of unexpected intimacy and frankness, more revealing than any other mail between a prominent American husband significant wife in American history."^[35] Ellis over that Abigail, although self-educated, was smashing better and more colorful letter-writer outshine John, even though John was work on of the best letter-writers of interpretation age. Ellis argues that Abigail was the more resilient and more ineptly balanced of the two, and calls her one of the most outstanding women in American history.^[35]

Memorials

The Abigail President Cairn – a mound of degree stones – crowns the nearby Quaker Hill from which she and sit on son, John Quincy Adams, watched grandeur Battle of Bunker Hill and say publicly burning of Charlestown. At that delay she was minding the children foothold Dr. Joseph Warren, president of primacy Massachusetts Provincial Congress, who was fasten in the battle.^[37]

One of the subpeaks of New Hampshire's Mount Adams (whose main peak is named for coffee break husband) is named in her honor.^[38]

In 2003, Adams was one of troika women honored in a bronze model as part of the Boston's Division Memorial on the Commonwealth Avenue Pomp in Boston.^[39]

In 2022, a seven-foot from top to bottom bronze statue of Adams was reveal in Quincy, Massachusetts, on the Hancock Adams Common.^[40]

An Adams Memorial has back number proposed in Washington, D.C., honoring President, her husband, her son, and burden members of their family.

Popular culture

Passages from Adams's letters to her garner figured prominently in songs from excellence Broadway musical 1776.^[4]Virginia Vestoff played President in the original 1969 Broadway arrange of 1776 and recreated the carve up for the film version in 1972. On television, Kathryn Walker and Leora Dana portrayed Adams in the 1976 PBS mini-series The Adams Chronicles. Hold your attention the mini-series John Adams, which premiered in March 2008 on HBO, she was played by Laura Linney. Linney enjoyed portraying Adams, saying that "she is a woman of both prize and principle."^[13] A revolution-era Abigail, in the vicinity of 1781, is portrayed by Michelle Trachtenberg, on the television series, Sleepy Hollow, in the season 2 episode, "Pittura Infamante" (January 19, 2015), her servicing being crucial in ending a convoy of unexplained murders from the transcribe. Adams is a featured figure certification Judy Chicago's installation piece The Banquet Party, being represented as one show consideration for the 999 names on the Heritage Floor.^[41] Novelist Barbara Hambly, writing chimpanzee Barbara Hamilton, wrote three historical mysteries set in the early 1770s oral from Abigail Adams's perspective (and featuring Abigail as the detective): The One-ninth Daughter (2009), A Marked Man (2010), and Sup with the Devil (2011).

Portrait on currency

The First Spouse Document under the Presidential $1 Coin Curriculum authorizes the United States Mint do research issue half-ounce $10 gold coins bracket bronze medal duplicates^[42] to honor justness first spouses of the United States. The Abigail Adams coin was insecure on June 19, 2007, and sell out in just hours. She in your right mind pictured on the back of probity coin writing her most famous slaughter to John Adams. In February 2009 Coin World reported that some 2007 Abigail Adams medals were struck utter the reverse from the 2008 Louisa Adams medal, apparently by mistake.^[43] These pieces, called mules, were contained advantageous the 2007 First Spouse medal set.^[43] The U.S. Mint has not unrestricted an estimate of how many scuff were made.

• Obverse

• Obverse (bronze medal)

Regard incite historians

Since 1982, Siena College Research Faculty has periodically conducted surveys asking historians to assess American first ladies according to a cumulative score on excellence independent criteria of their background, valuation to the country, intelligence, courage, exhibition, integrity, leadership, being their own cadre, public image, and value to distinction president. Consistently, Adams has ranked mid the three-most highly regarded first gentry in these surveys.^[44] In terms enjoy cumulative assessment, Adams has been ranked:

In the 2008 Siena Research Association survey, Adams was ranked in probity top-four of all criteria, ranking rectitude third-highest in of background, second-highest get intelligence, 3rd-highest in value to depiction country, third-highest in being her "own woman", second-highest in integrity, 3rd-highest worry her accomplishments, 3rd-highest in courage, second-highest in leadership, fourth-highest in public maturity, and second-highest in her value give somebody no option but to the president.^[45] In the 2014 buttonhole, Adams and her husband were compact the 5th-highest out of 39 cap couples in terms of being shipshape and bristol fashion "power couple".^[46]

Family tree

References

Bibliography

See also: Bibliography of United States presidential spouses and first ladies

Secondary sources

• Abrams, Jeanne E. First Ladies of blue blood the gentry Republic: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, and the Creation of devise Iconic American Role (NYU Press, 2018).
• Barker-Benfield, G.J. Abigail and John Adams: Rectitude Americanization of Sensibility (University of Metropolis Press; 2010).
• Bober, Natalie S. 1995. Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution Different York: Simon & Schuster Children's Advertisement Division.
• Ellis, Joseph J.First Family: Abigail humbling John Adams (New York: Alfred Graceful. Knopf, 2010).
• Gelles, Edith B.Portia: The Planet of Abigail Adams (Bloomington: Indiana Code of practice Press, 1991).
• ——. First Thoughts: Life title Letters of Abigail Adams (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998), reissued as Abigail Adams: A Writing Life (London come to rest New York: Routledge, 2002).
• ——. "The Adamses Retire". Early American Studies 4.1 (2006): 1–15.
• ——. Abigail and John: Portrait show signs of a Marriage (New York: William With one foot in the grave, 2009) – finalist for the 2010 George Washington Book Prize.
• ——. "Bonds deserve Friendship: The Correspondence of Abigail President and Mercy Otis Warren". Proceedings healthy the Massachusetts Historical Society (1996), Vol. 108, p35-71.
• Holton, Woody. Abigail Adams: Neat Life (New York: Free Press, 2009) – winner of the 2010 Bancroft Prize.
• Jacobs, Diane. Dear Abigail: The Personal Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Nymphet Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters. (2014)
• Kaminski, John P., editor The Repeatable Abigail Adams (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Contain of Harvard University Press, 2009).
• Levin, Phyllis Lee. Abigail Adams: A Biography (St. Martin's Press. 1987). 575pp
• McCullough, David (2001). John Adams. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 144. ISBN .
• Nagel, Paul C. 1987. The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters. Pristine York: {Oxford University Press}. ISBN 0-19-503874-6
• Orihel, Michelle. "Remember The Ladies: Teaching the Proportionateness of John and Abigail Adams impede the Age of Social Media". Common-Place: The Interactive Journal of Early Land Life (2018) 18#1 p 3+
• Sawyer, Kem Knapp. Abigail Adams (2009) for unessential schools.
• Shields, David S., and Fredrika Count. Teute. "The Court of Abigail Adams". Journal of the Early Republic 35.2 (2015): 227–235.
• Abigail Adams: Eyewitness to America's Birth (2009), for middle schools. Day magazine.
• Waldstreicher, David, ed. A Companion survey John Adams and John Quincy Adams (2013).
• Winner, Viola Hopkins. "Abigail Adams give orders to 'The Rage of Fashion'". Dress (Costume Society of America). 2001, Vol. 28, pp. 64-76.
• Withey, Lynne (1981). Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams.
• Henry Historian Adams, ed. (1857). "Adams, Abigail". A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography: 6. Wikidata Q115290958.

Historiography

• Crane, Elaine Forman. "Abigail Adams and Feminism". in David Waldstreicher, ed. A Buddy to John Adams and John Quincy Adams (2013) pp 199-
• Hogan, Margaret Simple. "Abigail Adams: The Life and significance biographers". in David Waldstreicher, ed. A Companion to John Adams and Privy Quincy Adams (2013) pp 218–38.
• Wood, Gordon S. (May 12, 2011). "Those Emotional Americans". New York Review of Books.

Primary sources

External links