Adams, Abigail

Adams, Abigail (b. Smith)

(1744–1818) First Lady; born in Weymouth, Mass. A minister's daughter, she married John Adams in 1764, beginning a classic partnership that lasted for 54 years. She had no formal schooling but taught herself Latin and then educated her five children, one of whom, John Quincy Adams, became the sixth president. Adams was often away on government business and she ran the family farm in Quincy. She and Adams maintained a long correspondence during those years of separation; her letters displayed a political bent which exceeded that of most Revolutionary period women. She was not overly happy as first lady; she resented both the expense of entertaining and the lack of privacy. She and Adams resided in Philadelphia until 1800, when she supervised the move to Washington, D.C. Following the presidency, she continued her letter writing (Thomas Jefferson was one of her correspondents). She is the only woman to have been both the wife and the mother of U.S. presidents.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.