Abigail Smith Adams
(1744–1818)

Abigail Smith Adams was the wife of John Adams, the second President of the United States and the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States. She was one of the most important and influential American women of her time. A dedicated supporter of women's rights and the American Revolutionary movement, Adams wrote many letters to her husband and other members of her family expressing her opinions. In these letters, Adams included vivid descriptions that capture the essence of life in early America.

Abigail Smith was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts. At the age of twenty, she married John Adams. The couple had four sons and one daughter, and Abigail made sure that her daughter received a thorough education—something few American girls received at the time.

In 1774, when John left home to serve as a member of the Continental Congress, Abigail assumed the responsibility of managing the family farm in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts. Due to John's political involvement, John and Abigail were separated from each other for most of the next ten years. During this period Abigail became an avid letter writer. In her letters, Abigail provided her husband with information about British troops and ships in the Boston area, stressed the importance of women's rights, and voiced her opposition to slavery.

When John Adams was elected President of the United States, John and Abigail Adams became the first couple to live in the White House. Among the letters Abigail wrote while living there is one to her daughter describing her temporary home. This letter and the others she wrote during this period provide an interesting view of life in the new nation.

Abigail Adams died in 1818, after spending the last seventeen years of her life at the Adams's family home in Massachusetts. In 1840 a volume of her letters was published, and since then three more volumes have been published. Today, Abigail Adams is widely recognized as a writer and a pioneer of the American women's movement.

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