Abigail Adams

From Philosopedia

Adams, Abigail (11 November 1744 - 28 October 1818)

Abigail (née Smith) Adams, wife of President John Adams and mother of President John Quincy Adams, was a letter-writer of note whose detailed descriptions provided a vivid source of social history. Some of her letters can be found in The Adams-Jefferson Letters. As the first First Lady to live in the newly constructed White House in Washington, she found the place unfinished and remarked,

• I had much rather live in the house at Philadelphia. Not one room or chamber is finished of the whole. It is habitable by fires in every part, thirteen of which we are obliged to keep daily, or sleep in wet and damp places. . . . We have not the least fence, yard, or other convenience, without; and the great unfinished audience-room [now the East Room used for receptions and concerts] I make a drying room of, to hang up the clothes in.

Adams was a member of the Unitarian Church in Quincy, Massachusetts.

(In Leonard Bernstein’s Broadway musical, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Abigail and her husband chose a black gentleman - Gilbert Price, on Broadway - to be the caretaker, and this person with his offspring continued to be caretaker of the place during a succession of presidents. Price, visiting the White House during the show’s performances in Washington, joked with President Jimmy Carter about his having had a job there long before Carter. Carter, who said he was a great admirer of the Adamses, joked that Price, who had lived in the Broadway White House and had earned a nomination for an Antoinette Perry Award, received honors that White House resident Carter had never received.)

Writing of Woody Holton's 2009 biography, Abigail Adams, Virginia DeJohn Anderson concludes,

Though the book’s narrative structure often compels the reader to excavate its dominant theme from a welter of biographical detail, the invigorating impact of the Revolution on Adams’s personality and actions is unmistakable. Holton, a professor of history at the University of Richmond, provides a fresh perspective that invites readers to do more than just remember this remarkable lady. They will admire her moxie and wish that the young Republic could have harnessed the talents and energies of women like her right from the start.

{CE; EG; U; WAS - numerous conversations with Gilbert Price}