Abigail Adams was born in 1744 and raised in a family that valued education, particularly for women. She received an informal education but took advantage of her father's library. Her upbringing influenced her later support for women's education. Through her letters with John Adams during the American Revolution, their relationship is revealed as one of intellectual equality. Abigail supported women's education to prepare them and their children but did not advocate for full equality. She believed in traditional gender roles while also seeing marriage as a partnership.

1. Abigail Adams
Amelia Clark
November 21, 2011
University of Mary Washington

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In order to fully understand Abigail Adams as a woman, one must analyze the
environment in which she was raised. Abigail Smith was born in November of 1744 to
William and Elizabeth Smith. Elizabeth Smith was a member of the elite and public
Quincy family while William Smith, a Harvard graduate, entered into ministry at the First
Church of Weymouth. Abigail’s upbringing was fairly typical of the late 18th
Century
with a few exceptions; she received an informal education from her mother and
grandmother but as she was passionate about education, she took advantage of her
father’s and grandfather’s large libraries. Abigail’s mother brought values unique to the
Quincy family, strength and intelligence were highly valued in women; even more odd,
women in general seemed to have been valued among the Quincy family.1
No doubt, this
importance placed on women and female education influenced her later efforts aimed at a
more equal education among the sexes.
While Abigail’s greatest regret was her lack of formal education, her drive and
passion for learning along with the advantage of her father’s library allowed her to be one
of the most read and knowledgeable women of her time.2
While her parent’s values of
education, women and religion played an important part in shaping Abigail as an adult,
the Enlightenment also played a major role in providing influence.3
The Enlightenment gave rise to new ideals that would directly and indirectly give
birth to the American Revolution and the idea of Republican Motherhood, both of which
1
Rosemary Keller, Patriotism and the Female Sex (New York: Carlson Publishing Inc.,
1994).
2
Gale Cengage Learning, Abigail Adams, 1996,
http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/whm/bio/adams_a.htm (accessed
November 14, 2011).
3
Rosemary Keller, Patriotism and the Female Sex (New York: Carlson Publishing Inc.,
1994).

3. 3
had major roles in the life of Abigail Adams. Thus the influences of her parents as well as
the events and changes of the time period led her to define herself as a wife but also an
intellectual equivalent to her partner and friend, she also defined herself as a mother of
future leaders, and a devout patriot.
The letters between John and Abigail Adams during the American Revolution are
prized pieces of history as they display the toils and sacrifices a family was willing to go
through to achieve freedom, but also the obstacles the founding fathers faced. The letters
allow the reader to step into the past and relate to the founding fathers, their wives and
their children on a personal level.
Throughout the year of 1776, John and Abigail write over one hundred letters
which include political discussion and advice, personal matters with the farm, debates on
the raising of their children and much else. Abigail reveals herself through these letters in
her humorous comments, serious political advice and her caring, loving tone toward her
best and dearest friend. To her husband, Abigail shares her beliefs regarding women’s
rights as far as education and marriage; Abigail’s beliefs are not very uncommon, though
due to the frankness of her nature she is considered ahead of her time in regards to the
education and rights of women.
The most interesting thing about these letters is how they address each other, “My
Dearest Friend”, “My Best Friend”, “My Absent Friend”. There is a level of equality
understood between this husband and wife which is rare for the time period, it shows a
relationship of intellectual equality. Though they saw each other as intellectual equals,
Abigail valued her role as a supportive and tender wife and accepted the commonly held

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ideas of hierarchy within a marriage.4
Her defenses of women’s education are solely
based on the role of women as good mothers and good wives. In regards to women’s
rights within a marriage, she believed a marriage should be a partnership of intellectual
equals, though she did not overlook gender roles.
Abigail’s Understanding of Women’s Rights
While Abigail asked John to “Remember the Ladies”, she was not asking for
complete social and political equality. She believed that women should receive an equal
education, but only to better prepare their own children and to serve as better
representatives for their husbands while they were away.
While Abigail Adams was not an advocate for equal rights for women, she was
ahead of her time due to her bold, “saucy” nature, her passion for education, and her
influences from the Enlightenment. In her letter to John on March 31, 1776, she asks him
to “Remember the Ladies”. “Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the
Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.”5
Abigail uses the words of
the revolution in an attempt to persuade her husband, “If perticuliar care and attention is
not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold
ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”6
This was
an empty threat; while Abigail asked for less power to be placed in the hands of men, she
4
Jennifer Shingleton, "Abigail Adams: The Feminist Myth," The Concord Review (The
Concord Review, Inc), 1998: 25.
5
Abigail Adams, "Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March - 5 April 1776,"
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, March
31, 1776, htte://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/ (accessed October 16, 2011).
6
Ibid.

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does not specifically state that she wished for women to have more rights. She was asking
for women to be treated with more care and to be regarded “as Beings placed by
providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of
that power only for our happiness.”7
Abigail wanted women to be treated with more respect as she believed women
were as intellectually capable as men and deserved to be treated as such. While men
allowed their wives to tend to their business affairs in their absence, they should respect
women as intellectual equals and cherish them as wives and human beings. Another way
in which Abigail sought out rights for women was through education. A woman who was
well educated was better qualified to serve as a good wife, but more importantly a mother
and a shaper of minds.
Abigail’s support of Women’s Education
The idea of becoming educated in order to better educate children as important
public figures was not a new idea and would soon surface as somewhat popular in the
ideal of “Republican Motherhood”. It is with this belief that drives Abigail to achieve
educational rights for women, it also provides the basis for the education of her own
children.
The education of children is a topic discussed and debated between John and
Abigail in their letters. John complains his countrymen are lacking in necessary fields of
knowledge and character. He desires to “instruct my Countrymen in the Art of making
7
Ibid.

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the most of their Abilities and Virtues, an Art, which they have hitherto, too much
neglected.”8
He desired to remedy these problems through education, for “New England
must produce the Heroes, the statesmen, the Philosophers, or America will make no great
Figure for some Time.”9
Abigail would promote the rights of women with every
opportunity she could find; while Abigail wholly agreed that children must be raised to
be statesmen, philosophers and servers to the public, she retorts his letter with comments
on the education of women. “If you complain of neglect of Education of sons, What shall
I say with regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it.”10
“If we mean
to have Heroes, Statesmen and Philosophers, we should have learned women.”11
Abigail
believed that women must be educated in order to better prepare their children for
important roles in public life. Once again, the ideal of Republican Motherhood arises
from these ideas. With the responsibility of raising and education future leaders,
promoting education for women made sense to Abigail and a great many other women of
the time.
Abigail’s outlook on Marriage
8
John Adams, "Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3-4 August 1776," Adams
Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, August 4, 1776,
http://masshist.org/digitaladams/ (accessed October 16, 2011).
9
Ibid.
10
Abigail Adams, "Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 14 August 1776," Adams
Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, August 14,
1776, http://masshist.org/digitaladams/ (accessed October 16, 2011).
11
Ibid.

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Raising children was not Abigail’s only responsibility during the years of the
Revolution. With John away from the house so often, Abigail was obliged to fulfill the
roles of both husband and wife in his absence, something common for the late 18th
Century housewife; she cared for and raised the children, while at the same time tended
to John’s farm and business affairs. In a letter to John on April 11, 1776, she says, “I miss
my partner, and find myself uneaquil to the cares which fall upon me; I find it necessary
to be the directress of our Husbandery and farming… I hope in time to have the
Reputation of being as good a Farmeress as my partner has of being a good Statesmen.”12
Abigail, while an advocate for women’s education, did believe in the gender roles of the
time and was not comfortable with her abilities to fulfill the job of her husband. The fact
that she did refer to him as a partner reveals a liberal and new idea of partner in marriage;
working as partners within a marriage does not however neglect the understandings of
gender roles of the time.
John praised her abilities as a “Stateswoman, of late as well a Farmeress.”13
In a
later letter to John however, Abigail for the first time attemted to persuade John to come
home. On September 20, 1776 she writes “that whilst you are engaged in the Senate your
own domestick affairs require your presence at Home, and that your wife and children are
in Danger of wanting Bread.”14
Abigail thinks herself failing in the affairs of which her
12
Abigail Adams, "Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams - 7-11 April 1776," Adams
Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, April 11, 1776,
http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/ (accessed October 16, 2011).
13
John Adams, "Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 27 May 1776," Adams
Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusettes Historical Society, May 27, 1776,
http://masshist.org/digitaladams/ (accessed October 16, 2011).
14
Abigail Adams, "Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 20 September 1776,"
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, September 20, 1776,
http://masshist.org/digitaladams/ (accessed October 16, 2011).

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husband is responsible. She attempts to guilt him into feeling that he has neglected his
family; not only is his family in danger of going hungry but his properties are failing
well: “but unless you return what little property you possess will be lost.”15
She then
continues on with a long list of the problems with his domestic affairs, a result of which
she implies is the fault of John’s neglect.
Abigail believed in the Revolution and her husband’s important role; she believed
she was serving her country by allowing herself to be parted from her dearest friend and
fill his role as businessman and father. The fact that she only once directly tells him to
come home due to her own failures shows how strong and independent she was as a
person, but she did not want to be independent as a wife, “I know the weight of publick
cares lye so heavey upon you that I have been loth to mention your own private ones.”16
Once again, while Abigail saw herself as a partner in marriage, common gender roles
were still important.
She regretted that she was not fulfilling her duty as his substitute in his affairs;
she wanted to serve her country as a good patriot and serve her husband as a good wife.
She suffered as many women did during the American Revolution; with their husbands
away, left with duties new and difficult but with a desire to serve their husbands and their
country to the best of their ability. “The cruel Seperation to which I am necessatated cuts
of half the enjoyments of life, the other half are comprised in the hope I have that what I
do and what I suffer may be serviceable to you, to our Little ones and our Country.”17
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Abigail Adams, "Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, 21-22 July 1776," Adams
Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, July 21, 1776,
http://masshist.org/digitaladams/ (accessed October 16, 2011).

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Conclusion
Like many women of the Revolution, Abigail Adams was exposed to war, loss,
loneliness, neglect and suffering. Through her letters Abigail shares her thoughts and
experiences with her husband and as a result reveals herself as a woman. Abigail
supported women’s rights in such a way that allowed for a husband a wife to be partners,
though she still accepted the common gender roles of the time. Abigail promoted the
education of women as she believed them as intellectual capable as me as well as
responsible for raising children to be future leaders. Abigail’s understanding of marriage
and her roles as a wife were not uncommon, though her marriage to John is revealed
through their letters to be exceptional with a joint understanding of equality and
partnership.
As a woman, Abigail Adams was not one of the first feminists, nor did she give
rise to the movement intentionally or even directly. She was a woman who, as a mother
and wife of the late 18th
Century had been taught to serve her husband and to educate and
mold her children. She did this to the best of her ability under the circumstances that were
forced upon her by the war and by disease but also by new ideas and a new country.

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Bibliography
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