Abigail Smith Adams

Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams was born in Weymouth, Mass., on Nov. 11, 1744, and died on Oct. 28, 1818. She was the wife of John Adams, the second president of the United States, and the mother of John Quincy Adams, sixth president. Considered her husband's equal in intelligence, drive, and diplomacy, she was active in his career, advocated equal education for women, and spoke out frequently against slavery.

"If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women."
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Abigail Adams was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the daughter of the Reverend William Smith,
minister of the Congregational church there. Through her mother, Elizabeth Quincy (1721-75), she was descended from the 17th-century Puritan preacher Thomas Shepard (1605-49) of Cambridge. Although she had little formal education ( she was educated at home by her grandmother), she was among the most influential women of her day, and displayed a lively intelligence and expressed her strong opinions in a straightforward manner.

She was especially successful as a fashion leader and social arbiter. During and after the American Revolution she was separated for long periods of time from her husband, who was first a delegate to Congress and later a diplomat in Europe. Abigail Adams was a prodigious letter writer, and her letters to her husband present a vivid picture of the time (many editions of her letters have been published).аAs First Lady, she was a skillful political hostess, although she offended some by her strong Federalist views.

After 1800 she lived in Washington, D.C., and thereafter in Braintree, Massachusetts. The Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife, Abigail (2 volumes, 1876), published with a memoir by their grandson, Charles Francis Adams, and later collections of her letters, show that she was perceptive, sagacious, warmhearted, and generous.

See also: а"Women of the Revolution" in this web site.

(See Bibliography below)

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Author: Ronald W. McGranahan
Picture Credit: Gilbert Stuart, Abigail Smith Adams (Mrs. John Adams), 1800/1815; Miles, Ellen G., American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 214-216, color repro. 215.
Bibliography: Akers, Charles W. Abigail Adams: An American Woman. (1980); Butterfield, L. H., et al., eds., The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-84 (1975); Levin, Phyllis Lee, Abigail Adams: A Biography (1987); Nagel, Paul C. The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters. (1987); Richards, Laura E., Abigail Adams and Her Times (1917; repr. 1971); Whitney, Janet, Abigail Adams (1947; repr. 1987); Withey, Lynne, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams (1981).