Abigail Adams Research Paper

The History of Abigail Smith Adams

Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818) was the wife of John Adams, the second president of the United States, and mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States. She was born about 30 years before the Revolutionary War and ran her entire household during the war with very little help. After the war, she went to Europe to be with John and later became very involved in politics when John became vice president and then president, by advising him.

Abigail was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, on November 22, 1744. “On her mother’s side she was descended from the Quincys, a family of great prestige in the colony; her father and other forebears were Congregational ministers, leaders in a society that held its clergy in high esteem” (Black). Abigail often helped her mother care for the sick and poor. Abigail also had no formal education which was normal for women from that time period. This led her to become “self-educated, she [also] read widely and studied French” (History.com Staff). This love of reading connected her to John Adams, after meeting him “at a social gathering in 1762” (“Abigail Adams”, Biography.com).

John and Abigail married on October 25, 1764, and Abigail moved with him to the “Adams’ farm in Braintree, south of Boston” (Michals). As a Harvard graduate, John quickly started his

“Abigail and John Adams did not always see eye to eye on matters of policy,” according to Biography.com, but she still did her best to help John. Even though she could not officially be John’s advisor, she acted as one and acted through John to improve the United States. When John lost the re-election in 1801, they “retreated to Massachusetts” (Michals). Abigail lost her son Charles around this time and never got to see her son John Quincy Adams become President. “She died on October 28, 1818, three days after her 54th wedding anniversary”