I have finished reading about half of Abigail Adams by Woody Holton. With the holiday season in full swing, I have not had a lot of time for reading, and even less for writing, but I thought I would stop and briefly record some themes and ideas that have stuck out to me, in no particular order, concerning Abigail's life through the Revolution.
A) I enjoyed learning that John and Abigail's affection for each other grew out of a mutual regard of the other as "saucy." Originally a reason for John's dislike of Abigail – she was younger and had a tendency to tease the socially awkward John – her cleverness and wit eventually won him over as did his her. Their love and marriage was based on a deep respect based around their affection for each other as friends, first and foremost.
B) Education for women and the general lack thereof in colonial America was a frequent topic of discourse for Abigail. According to Holton, Abigail's lack of formal education was "her greatest regret in life" (7), which she increasingly attributed to sex discrimination in a society that simply did not value education for women. She partially countered this lack of formal education by writing letters among a group of friends who used their letters specifically for discussing literature, practicing writing, and teaching and learning from each other in addition to their social purposes. It is a practice that she continued through her life, including during her courtship with John. In fact, John's willingness to indulge her love of literature and desire to learn through books is what Holton attributes as the best explanation for her attraction to him. But despite his encouragement of her reading, John was not fully convinced by Abigail's arguments that formal education for women was best for a fledgling freedom movement or for women raising boys into the best possible men. Nor did John allow his only daughter to continue in the broader education that Abigail had started her on the path toward in John's absence.
C) Letters were a central learning and educating tool for Abigail Adams. Significantly, she used them to express her thoughts on women's place in society with a number of correspondents. As Holton argues well, these were not ideas she shared only privately with her husband. Indeed, she even published such thoughts in a Boston newspaper, albeit anonymously. Letters also became a significant device in Abigail's political education as she became something of a local reporter for John during his time away. Her letters carefully and descriptively informed him about military and political events in his home province while he was away in Philadelphia or Europe. Unfortunately, while Abigail was regular, indeed prolific, with her letter-writing, John was less-so. Abigail often complained that he did not write frequently enough, that his letters were short and too-business-like.
D) Abigail Adams is perhaps best known for her 31 March 1776 letter to John Adams in which she entreated him to "Remember the Ladies" as he and his fellow congressional delegates made decisions concerning the future governance of the country they had just declared independent. To my surprise, this letter was a relatively modest plea for women to be protected under new laws from overbearing husbands and domestic violence. Indeed, overshadowed by future readers' attachment to Adams as "feminist" is the fact that John's response failed to concede male authority and that the same letter contained an equally impassioned denunciation of slavery. Moreover, Abigail would go on to make more radical complaints concerning women's disenfranchisement and exclusion from public office in a 17 June 1782 letter to her husband following victory at Yorktown.
E) Despite her lack of formal education, Abigail Adams successfully took on many responsibilities outside the ideal realm of "women's work" during John's extended absences. This was the case especially when it came to the family economy. While John was away at congressional sessions in Philadelphia or for nearly three years attempting to negotiate alliances and peace with European powers, Abigail managed the farm, paid taxes, and made sure the family economy remained solvent. She did so largely through a business importing and selling European goods on consignment (social conventions of the time would not let a respectable middling lady act as solo merchant). Eventually her successful management of the family economy led her into property investments and a significant amount of property that she would come to claim as her own, laws of coverture be damned.
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