Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams was an American political correspondent, household manager and first lady whose surviving letters provide an unusually rich record of the revolutionary generation. Born Abigail Smith in Massachusetts in 1744, she married lawyer John Adams in 1764 and managed family farms, finances and children during his long absences in public service. Their correspondence combined domestic concerns with close discussion of independence, war, government and political character, revealing her as an informed participant in the intellectual world surrounding the American Revolution.

Her most famous appeal came in 1776, when she urged John Adams to ‘remember the ladies’ while new laws were being framed, warning against unlimited male authority. Although she did not advocate modern political equality in a systematic programme, she argued strongly for women’s education and legal consideration. Abigail later joined John during his diplomatic service in Europe and served as the nation’s second first lady from 1797 to 1801. Her letters also illuminate slavery, party conflict and the personal costs of public life.

In Barbara Hambly’s Patriot Hearts, Abigail Adams is portrayed alongside Martha Washington, Sally Hemings and Dolley Madison as a politically alert woman navigating family life and public upheaval from the Revolution into the early republic. Jody Hedlund’s Rebellious Heart fictionalises the early relationship of Abigail and John Adams through the characters Susanna Smith and Benjamin Ross.