ABIGAIL ADAMS (1774)

Prolific letter writer whose correspondence gives an intimate and vivid portrayal of life in the young republic; she was the wife of John Adams, second president of the United States (1797-1801), and mother of John Quincy Adams, sixth president (1825-29).


Although her formal education was meagre, Abigail Adams was remarkably knowledgeable and an avid reader of history. Her marriage in 1764 to John Adams, a young Boston lawyer, began a lifetime partnership of support and mutual respect that many considered an ideal union.


For 10 years beginning in 1774, after the birth of five childres, Mrs. Adams was largely separated from her husband at the family home in Quincy, while he attended to federal business at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia; she not only managed the household and the education of the children but she also assumed responsability for her husband´s business and farming affairs.


The enforced separation evoked a stream of letters to keep in touch, leading to the flowering of Mrs. Adam´s genius as a correspondent. Her artless spontaneity brought the times to life with a charming blend of comments on minutiae of the day with observations on the momentous events of the Revolutionary period.


She strongly supported the necessity of colonial independence from England, espoused equal educational opportunities for women, and vigorously opposed slavery.


Following the peace treaty of 1783, Mrs. Adams joined her husband for five years abroad while he served in diplomatic posts in Paris, The Hague, and London. Her letters to friends and family at home again provide a colourful commentary on manners and customs.


In the 12-year period when John Adams served as vice president and president of the United States (1789-1801), she moved back and forth between Massachusetts and Washington -once more filling in the absences with her flowing commentary. In mid-November 1800 she became briefly the first mistress of the new President´s House built on the Potomac River.


The Adamses spent the next 17 years in quiet retirement at the family home. Successive printings of Mrs. Adams letters periodically revived public appreciation of her literary contribution to the original source material of the early American period.