Abigail Adams

On November 22, 1744, at Weymouth in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, Abigail Smith was born into the New England ministerial world of Reverend William Smith. She learned history, religion, and politics through her father's library rather than formal schooling, a limitation she later criticized in her letters. Her marriage to John Adams in 1764 drew her into the crisis around the Stamp Act and the political networks of Braintree, Boston, and Philadelphia.

During the Continental Congress and the War for Independence, Abigail Adams managed the Adams household and farm while corresponding with John Adams about policy, wartime shortages, and republican government. Her March 31, 1776 'remember the ladies' letter tied the language of liberty to women's legal status just as Congress moved toward independence. When John Adams served in Europe and later became vice president and president, her letters from Paris, London, Philadelphia, and Quincy remained a detailed private commentary on the making of the republic.

Abigail Adams's correspondence became a major documentary record for historians of the Continental Congress, the Adams presidency, and early national politics. Her 1776 appeal echoed through the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 and later campaigns for married women's property laws and women's education.