Lecture: Abigail Adams: A Life

Date: November 10, 2009
Time: 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Location: Adams Carriage House
Details: ABIGAIL ADAMS: A Life by, Woody HoltonPublication Date: November 3, 2009Abigail Adams, wife of the second president of the United States and mother of the sixth, is rightly remembered as one of the most illustrious women of the Founding Era. Her famous "Remember the Ladies" letter, written to John Adams during the Continental Congress, has inspired those fighting for equality of the sexes throughout history. A perennially popular figure and American role model, Adams long ago captured the public imagination and holds it to this day; she has been chronicled in numerous biographies as well as in various works of television, film, and theater. And yet, despite the wealth of portrayals of her life, only a small part of her story has been told.Mining a treasure trove of historical documents, including the more than 2,000 surviving letters that Adams wrote over the course of her lifetime, Holton traces the evolution of her multifaceted personality across the span of more than seventy years of revolution, war, and social upheaval and dissects her relationship with her husband over more than five decades.Abigail and John Adams loved each other, but in the first clear look at the full dynamics of their marriage, Holton also shows that they disagreed passionately about a host of topics: how to educate their children, how openly they should express their feelings for each other, and - most persistently - how to manage the familys finances. In these disputes, Abigail proved to be tough negotiator. Although Johns favorite investment was farmland, she often convinced him to place his savings in depreciated government securities instead. During the Revolutionary War, John, who was stationed in Europe, shipped merchandise across the Atlantic for Abigail to sell. The couple argued about several key aspects of their business, and on nearly all of these points, Abigail was eventually able to bring John around to her way of thinking. In Holtons narrative, Abigail emerges as a true financial wiz.Well into the nineteenth century, married women in America were not allowed to own property. In defiance of this prohibition, Adams accumulated a substantial fortune - partly by buying up depreciated Revolutionary War bonds. She took great pains to conceal her management of these funds from her husband, but in the end she was able to obtain his support for her challenge to the eras patriarchal norms. Shortly before her death, Abigail wrote a will- something married women were not supposed to do, since the law denied them any control over property.Politics also brought out differences between the two Adamses. John favored a stricter separation of church and state than Abigail, who also feared that the Alien and Sedition Acts - the most notorious legislation her husband ever signed as president - were not harsh enough. In addition to rewriting the history of the Adams marriage, Holton also reveals the drama behind Abigails other relationships: with her sisters (both of whose financial fortunes sank even as hers soared, creating tension within the family), with her fathers former slave Phoebe (who refused to follow the precepts Abigail pressed upon her), with her female in-laws (two of whom deeply resented their dependence upon her charity) and with her children and grandchildren (nearly all of whom firmly resisted her efforts to manage their lives).ABIGAIL ADAMS not only offers a surprising new perspective on the famous events of Adamss life but demonstrates that family dramas - from unplanned pregnancies to untimely deaths (three of Abigails five children died before she did) - could be just as heartbreaking, significant, and inspiring.The untold story of Adamss domestic struggles often reads like a Jane Austen novel, and Holton, the winner of numerous prizes for his previous books, is just the person to tell it.A beautifully written, nuanced portrait of an undoubtedly complicated and fascinating woman, ABIGAIL ADAMS sheds new light on a much beloved icon of American history and brings the modern reader to a better understanding of one of the best-known but least understood characters on the countrys early political stage.Woody Holton is associate professor of history at the University of Richmond in Virginia and the recipient of a coveted Guggenheim fellowship for ABIGAIL ADAMS. His first book, Forced Founders, received the prestigious Merle Curti Award for social history from the Organization of American Historians; Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution was a finalist for the National Book Award. He lives in Richmond, Virginia and will be touring this fall to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.
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