Abigail Adams

Unsung History

Abigail Smith Adams, wife to the second U.S. president and mother of the sixth U.S. president, may be best known for exhorting her husband to “remember the ladies” as he worked with his colleagues to form a new government, but that was just one of her many strongly-held political views. Adams, who lacked formed education and whose legal status was subsumed under that of her husband, never stopped arguing for greater educational opportunities and legal rights for women. Because of her prolific correspondence, including more than 1,100 letters between her and John, and because the care with which her descendents preserved her writing, we have an extraordinary view into the inner life of a woman who helped shape the country. Joining me in this episode is presidential historian Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky, the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library and author of Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Yankee Doodle,” performed by the United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. The episode is a painting of Abigail Adams around 1766 by Benjamin Blyth; the image is in the public domain and available via Wikimedia Commons

Additional Sources:

• “Abigail Adams: A Life,” by Woody Holton, Atria Books, 2010.
• “Biography: Abigail Adams,” PBS American Experience.
• “Abigail Adams,” UVA Miller Center.
• “John and Abigail Adams: A Tradition Begins,” by Betty C. Monkman, White House Historical Association, Spring 2000.
• “Coverture: The Word You Probably Don't Know But Should,” by Catherine Allgor, National Women’s HIstory Museum, September 4, 2012.
• “More Power to You: Abigail Adams advocated dismantling the 'masculine system' that denied property and legal rights to married women,” by Lindsay Keiter, Colonial Williamsburg, October 2, 2020.
• “Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives.
• “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 April 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives.
• “Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 25 February 1787,” Founders Online, National Archives.
• “John Adams to Abigail Adams, 22 March 1797,” Founders Online, National Archives.
• “Will of Abigail Adams, 18 January 1816,” Founders Online, National Archives.

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