Abigail Adams

By Jone Johnson Lewis, About.com Guide

Abigail Adams - Gilbert Stuart portrait

Courtesy, Library of Congress

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Abigail Adams Facts:

Known for: First Lady, mother of John Quincy Adams, farm manager, letter writer
Dates: November 22 (11 old style), 1744 - October 28, 1818; married October 25, 1764
Also known as: Abigail Smith Adams

Abigail Adams Biography:

Wife of the second President of the United States, Abigail Adams is an example of one kind of life lived by women in colonial, Revolutionary and early post-Revolutionary America. While she's perhaps best known simply as an early First Lady (before the term was used) and mother of another President, and perhaps known for the stance she took for women's rights in letters to her husband, Abigail Adams should also be known as a competent farm manager and financial manager.

Educated at home, Abigail Adams learned quickly and read widely. Her marriage to John Adams was warm and loving -- and also intellectually lively, to judge from their letters.

They had four children before John became involved in the Continental Congress. During his long absences, Abigail managed the family and the farm and corresponded not only with her husband but with many family members and friends. During the war, she also served as the primary educator of the children, including the future sixth U.S. president, John Quincy Adams.

When John served in Europe as a diplomatic representative of the new nation, Abigail Adams joined him.

John Adams served as Vice President of the United States from 1789-1797 and then as President 1797-1801. Abigail spent some of her time at home, managing the family financial affairs, and part of her time in the federal capital, in Philadelphia most of those years and, very briefly, in the new White House in Washington, D.C. (November 1800 - March 1801).

After John retired from public life at the end of his presidency, the couple lived quietly in Massachusetts.

It is mostly through her letters that we know much about the life and personality of this intelligent and perceptive woman of colonial America and the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary period.

Abigail Adams died in 1818, seven years before her son, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth president of the U.S.

Places: Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., United States

Organizations/Religion: Congregational, Unitarian