Abigail Adams

 http://www.history.org/visit/eventsAndExhibits/specialEvents/johnAdamsHBO.cfm

Personal Life:

Abigail Adams was born on November 11, 1744, in Weymouth, Massachusetts.  Her mother's descendents were of the Quincy line, which was a well-known and well-respected family in Massachusetts (then a colony).  Her father was a reverend and a Congregational minister.  Adams was clearly born into a wealthy, presitigious, and powerful family.  Abigail Adams did not receive a true education because she was a woman, but that did not stop her from becoming a very intelligent person.  Her father taught her many things from the Bible, and she learned from the library at her childhood home through curiosity and a love of reading.  Her mother taught her the practical household skills that would help her become a good wife in the times.

Abigail met John Adams and they were soon married.  The two were married in 1764, which gave Abigail blood relation to another prominent New Englander, Samuel Adams.  The two had five children in all.  Two daughters and three sons.  One son, John Quincy Adams, would later become president of the United States.  Abigail and John Adams had a long and healthy marriage that lasted over 50 years, in spite of the distance between the two because of John's political career.

After John's political career wound down, the two retreated to their home in Massachusetts, where they lived for another seventeed years in the peace of private life.  Abigail Adams died on October 28, 1818.  She is buried in the United First Parish Church of Quincy.

Political Life:

Abigail Adams did join her husband in Paris while he was serving as the U.S. Diplomat to France.  She also joined John Adams when he became the first U.S. minister to Great Britain.  In both instances she was a major influence on John and his decisions that he made.  Many of the most important decisions of the time period may have been in part influenced by Abigail Adams.  Abigail then furthered her influence as the wife of the first vice president, and as the first lady.

Political Impact:

Although Abigail Adams was a very influential prescence in early American Democracy, her most important and lasting impact was the way that she showed how the views of a woman are just as important as those of a man.  She expressed her views sincerely to John throughout the many letters that she wrote to him.  Her letters, in fact are very important historical documents. (Letters showing Abigail Adams support of women's rights)  Abigail Adams wanted some degree of womens equality.  She believed that a woman's role in society was just as important as a man's.  Her main quest was to gain equal rights for women to be able to receive a formal education.  This was the cornerstone of her "women's rights movement".  Abigail Adams should be remembered as one of the earliest crusaders for women's rights in revolutionary America.  In her own way, Abigail Adams was a forerunner for women's rights activists like Carrie Chapman Catt 

Abigail Adams Bibliography

Questions 

Page created by: Tyler M.

Avon High School, Avon, Indiana

Date created: 4/6/08 

M=4

R=2 or 3?

L=2