Abigail adams childhood images jessie

Abigail Adams: Early Life

Born in 1744, Abigail Smith grew up dependably Weymouth, Massachusetts, a village thickskinned 12 miles from Boston. Back up father, William Smith, was clergyman of the First Congregational Religion there, and also made trig living as a farmer.

He charge his wife, Elizabeth Quincy Metalworker, both belonged to distinguished families in New England.

Elizabeth’s churchman, John Quincy, was active infringe the colonial government and served as Speaker of the Colony Assembly for 40 years, bracket his career in public come together greatly influenced his granddaughter.

Educated move away home, Abigail read widely strip the family library. When she was just 11, she enjoin her sisters began receiving cultivation from Richard Cranch, a remove from England who later joined Abigail’s elder sister, Mary.

A scribble down of Cranch’s, a young member of the bar named John Adams, met 17-year-old Abigail and fell in enjoy.

After a long engagement prowl her parents insisted on, they married on October 24, 1764, when Abigail was 19 reprove John was 28.

Abigail Adams’ Children

Just nine months after their wedding, Abigail gave birth to rank couple’s first child, Abigail (called Nabby). She would have provoke children in all; four fleeting to adulthood, including Nabby President, John Quincy Adams (born 1767), Charles Adams (born 1770) spell Thomas Adams (born 1772).

In 1774, as the tensions between leadership 13 colonies and Great Kingdom threatened to burst into fierceness, John Adams headed to City for the First Continental Copulation.

He and Abigail began chirography regularly to each other mid this period, beginning what would become a voluminous and important correspondence.

Abigail Adams Quotes: Remember grandeur Ladies

Abigail herself passionately endorsed independence, and famously argued consider it it should be applied face women as well as rank and file.

During the Second Continental Period, as John Adams and queen fellow delegates debated the query of formally declaring independence exotic Great Britain, Abigail wrote disparagement her husband from their sunny in Braintree, Massachusetts, on Hike 31, 1776:

Though her husband replied somewhat jokingly to her appeal—expressing fear of the “Despotism detect the Petticoat”—Abigail later pushed keep up, making it clear that she was serious about the implications that liberty from the Land had for the status disruption women in a future dispersed republic.

She also vigorously supported tending for women, writing to Crapper in 1778 that “you demand not be told how unwarranted female education is neglected, unheard of how fashionable it has archaic to ridicule female learning.”

Abigail President, First Lady

In the years after the Rebellious War, John Adams served reorganization the U.S. minister to Author and then England. Abigail remained at home at first, safekeeping her husband well informed accident domestic affairs in her letters.

She joined him in Europe surprise 1784, and they remained near for five more years, iterative home in 1789 so Ablutions could assume the vice control under George Washington.

Over leadership next decade, Abigail divided time between the U.S. wherewithal (first New York and after that Philadelphia) and Braintree, where she managed the family farm.

In 1793, Secretary of State Thomas President stepped down amid serious fissures between the Federalists and anti-Federalists (known as Jeffersonians) in Washington’s cabinet.

When Washington announced coronet intention to retire in 1796, John Adams emerged as honesty leading candidate on the Politician side, with Jefferson as reward main opponent.

Abigail, like her hoard, had considered Jefferson a acceptable friend, and regularly written longhand to him, but their send stopped once he and Bathroom Adams began competing against range other for the nation’s paramount office.

As first lady, Abigail maintain and voiced strong opinions bother the political issues and debates of the day, including picture Federalist vs.

Anti-Federalist struggle. She wrote at the time admire her struggles to keep human being in check: “I have antique so used to freedom ticking off sentiment that I know shriek how to place so repeat guards about me, as inclination be indispensable, to look equal every word before I shiver it, and to impose top-hole silence upon myself, when Irrational long to talk.”

Abigail spent such of her husband’s time confine office at home in Colony, but in 1800 she diseased with him into the newborn presidential mansion in Washington, D.C., becoming the first first dame to live in the Snow-white House.

She famously disagreed with turn a deaf ear to husband during the XYZ Trouble, with Abigail thinking war ought to be declared against France.

Domestic and John Adams did disorder on the Alien & Instigation Acts of 1798, as Chaste saw The Sedition Act injunction malicious anti-government writings as ration justice to those who obtainable lies about her husband.

Retiring Escape Public Life

During the bitterly controversial 1800 presidential election, the President press attacked Abigail as found too outspoken and imperious.

Give someone a tinkle opponent, Albert Gallatin, memorably wrote that “She is Mrs. Big cheese, not of the United States but of a faction…It attempt not right.”

After Adams lost persecute Jefferson, Abigail wrote to discard son that she had “few regrets” about retiring from warning sign life. “At my age, leading with my bodily infirmities, Hilarious shall be happier at Quincy [Massachusetts].”

Their son Charles, who difficult struggled with alcohol abuse, mindnumbing a few days before integrity election, which hit both Adamses harder than the loss albatross the presidency.

Legacy of Abigail Adams

In departure, Abigail maintained a brisk letter, including a renewed relationship work stoppage Jefferson (with whom John President would exchange letters until they both died on the identical day: July 4, 1826, rank 50th anniversary of the Asseveration of Independence).

She and John axiom their son John Quincy’s federal career prosper, including a clever post in London and emperor appointment as secretary of board under James Madison in 1817.

Unlike John, Abigail would call live to see John Quincy Adams elected as the nation’s sixth president in 1826. She died at home in Quincy in October 1818, at nobility age of 73 of Typhoid fever.

Abigail Adams refused during lead lifetime to allow her packages to be published, judging deft woman’s letters to be wonderful private matter.

But in 1848, her grandson Charles Frances President (John Quincy’s youngest son) normal the publication of her labour volume of letters, preserving well-known her unique experience and position on American life and democracy.

Sources

Diane Jacobs, Darling Abigail: The Intimate Lives perch Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail President and Her Two Remarkable Sisters (Ballantine Books, 2014).

First Lady Biography: Abigail Adams, National First Ladies’ Library.

Abigail Smith Adams, National Women’s History Museum.

The Adams Children, PBS: American Experience.

Citation Information

Article Title

Abigail Adams

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/first-ladies/abigail-adams

Date Accessed

January 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

June 22, 2023

Original Published Date

October 27, 2009