In many ways, her letters read like those of any wife she implores him to write more often, peppers him with questions on details of his daily life, and informs him of activities on the homestead. His work took him away from home for long stretches of time, leaving Abigail in charge of the farm long before the revolution ever began. John Adams worked as a lawyer and a circuit judge. John and Abigail Adams exchanged over 1,100 letters throughout her lifetime, touching on topics such as their children, farm finances, personal intimacy, slavery, the constitution and rights, her lack of a formal education, women's rights, the monarchy in Britain, and more. John Adams placed his confidence in his wife the two viewed their marriage as a partnership-unlike many couples of the era-in which the prevailing belief for the upper and middle classes held that the wife should be submissive, meek, and delicate. During his absences, Abigail Adams managed her children, the household, and the family farm at a time when financial matters were considered a male responsibility. John and Abigail Adams settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, and within ten years, Abigail gave birth to five children-three sons and two daughters.Īs tensions between the American colonies and the mother country, Britain, erupted in the mid-1770s, John Adams felt called to the revolutionary cause. Abigail Smith met John Adams, a Harvard graduate interested in pursuing a career in law, in 1759 the two were married when she was twenty years old, in 1764. Her lack of formal schooling was always a source of frustration and embarrassment to her, and she was troubled by her lack of proper spelling and inability to speak or read French. A sickly child, Abigail read voraciously and used this self-education as a substitute for formal instruction born a female in the late 1700s, she was denied access to high school or college education. Her father was a Congregational minister, while her mother was a member of the prominent Massachusetts family, the Quincys. INTRODUCTIONĪbigail Smith Adams came from a well-established New England family. The couple exchanged over 1,100 letters during her lifetime.
She and Adams had five children, and she managed the couple's farm and affairs during the Revolutionary War, while John Adams worked toward independence for the thirteen British colonies. Born Abigail Smith in 1744 in Weymouth, Massachusetts, she married John Adams when she was twenty. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press.Ībout the Author: Abigail Adams was the first woman in American history to be both the wife and mother of a President.
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