Michelle this is a really special year for the Abigail Adams birthplace. It is the year of remembering abigail. Observing two big anniversaries, october 2018 marks the 200th anniversary of her death. We had a big kick off at the statehouse and we have another big commemoration in november of this year, which marks the 275th anniversary of her birth. Weve been joining with other organizations to honor her legacy and celebrate her life and legacy. So we have formed an organization, rememberabigail. Org, and a number of us are offering programs and events, so check so i would encourage you to check out that website. Our event tonight is absolutely the highlight of our commemorative year. We are really privileged to welcome edith to speak with us. She is a historian, an awardwinning historian, a trailblazer in american womens history. And she is a foremost leading expert on Abigail Adams. She has written several biographies of abigail. Most recently, she edited the library of america volume of abigails letters. 100 letters were published for the first time. Today, she is going to speak to us about the fascinating relationship of another remarkable revolutionary era woman, Mercy Otis Warren, and the relationship she had with Abigail Adams. I know you are going to enjoy this. Please help me welcome edith. [applause] edith i was saying earlier that i saw a couple of years ago, a news broadcast with the queen of england, and she was behind one of these podiums, and all you could see was the hat. [laughter] edith i asked for a step. Thank you for that stunning introduction, and thank you for being so cordial and accommodating to me. To the whole Abigail Adams birthplace friends, it has been wonderful to meet all of you. Thank you all for coming to this splendid site. It is really beautiful. It is a pleasure to talk about my friend and yours, Abigail Adams. Gazing straight at us in their 18th century dresses, posed for us in an 18th century, we are enchanted by the force of character and power of personality that gives the spark of life to Abigail Smith adams and Mercy Otis Warren in two early portraits of our revolutionary foremothers. These portraits invite us to know them and imagine their lives. We are intrigued, because they appear feminine and poised and alert. Curiosity makes us wonder about the symbolism in the pictures. The significance of the nasturtiums that mercys hand gracefully reaches for, and the pearls that ornament abigails neck. There may be meaning that they are both dressed in blue. We can compare them for the contrasts that we see. The obvious disparity in the workmanship of the artists, the differing mediums, the voluptuousness of mercys dress, the entire painting as opposed to this bareness of abigails portrait. If we studied them closely, we see age difference, social rank, even attitude. Our imagination could carry us further, to wonder about their absent families, their backgrounds, their life stories, but we are stopped short. How can we know the particularly of these missing dimensions without more information . Without the written portraits we without the written portraits, we are destined to invent the rest of their stories. Language, too, creates portraits. Derived from the material legacy of their letters and the historical narrative that provides context, we may read the life stories, the biographical narratives that also forms a picture, one that moves and changes. Stories that have a beginning, middle, and end. Both of these great women left written legacies. Abigails, almost entirely in letters, and mercys, in letters, poetry, plays, and history. These written legacies describe action and reaction, women in relation to others as well as the events of their era. The written portrait demonstrates motivation and resolution. They suggest ideology and analysis. They are dynamic. Portraits in words also challenge our imagination. Beyond their material basis in literature, our personal insights and scrutiny suggest meaning and dimension to people and events. In the end, its not just our sources and our skills, but our inferences and analysis that analyses that create portraits in language. These portraits, however, remain blank at their centers, lacking the accuracy of facial features and expression. The dimension and carriage of the body. The emblematic gesture. The color and texture of clothing and background. We long for the real image, the painted portrait, even though it is static in time. It satisfies the imagination. Both the biographical and painted portraits can survive without the other, but in the end, each is poorer without the other. Portraits speak to us of another time, another set of people, another set of cultural conditions, and maybe historic events. Biography speaks to us of people whose behavior we can know and understand through the lens of our own time. Our visual image is enriched by reading the narrative outside the painting. Our portrait in words is grounded by reality of the visual image. The purpose of painted portraiture in colonial america, where few artists and no art museums yet existed, was family was for family members to provide a legacy for descendents rather than as a cultural artifacts, a decoration as paintings became in the 19th century. A decoration, as paintings became in the 19th century. A painting might be decorative a painting might be decorative, but its intent was to demonstrate lineage for prominent families. To show future generations where they came from, to provide Family History and to some degree, pedigree. Mostly portraiture was for wealthy people, to emulate the the tradition of the gentille classes in europe that displayed privately and publicly their ancestral roots. Colonial portraits hung in parlors, where they could be viewed and promote layers of social meaning to viewers. To their viewers. Just as portraiture had a special significance in the 18th century, so the portrait painters position in society was particular to that era. He, and to my knowledge, there were no female painters, was in fact, a craftsman, an artisan, just as a silversmith or cabinet maker or a shoemaker was a craftsman. His only market as a painter was portraiture, for the citizens of britains america, colonies had not developed a taste for decorative painting. If they did, it was in the form of imported prints or pictures torn from journals. In fact, that is how most american painters came to their craft. They first learned by copying imported pictures, and then perhaps from each other. The latter accounts for the emergence from an impoverished childhood to become new englands premiere portraitist. John singleton copley was probably born in 1738. His father passed away when he was 10, and he had to withdraw from school to help support his family. Within two years, his mother had remarried to peter pelham, a printmaker. A stroke of luck on several accounts. His new stepfather appointed the gifted young boy, and in a few years, he had gone beyond training for making prints to first using pastels and then oils. Soon he was painting portraits for bostons first family, and by the time he painted mercy in the early 1760s, he had reached his stride as a portrait painter. Copley placed mercy in a pastoral setting. The portrait represents are in the age of 35, well in her a woman well in her middling years by 18thcentury standards, still youthful in appearance. Going against the wisdom that colonial portraits represented transition, this was a matron, a a this was a portrait of matron, a mother of three who would yet give birth to two more sons. Mercy is captured in action, reaching for nasturtiums or turning away from them toward the viewer. Mercy is animated, pleasantly so. Her face is intelligent, though unremarkable. Perhaps too plain for the elaborate dress and headdress that she wears. But the color in her cheeks and red mouth against her dark eyes and beautifully glowing skin speaks to a young womans health. The delicacy of her figure and hands are feminine while the high forehead and alert expression to note intelligence. Denote intelligence. Her posture and angle of her head, more in keeping with the expensive dress, show pride of place in the world. Mercy was descended from the first families of massachusetts. We can easily imagine her sitting down to tea, and she pours from a silver rather than pewter server. This, it failed to record her potential, because it was by her pen and ink that wasreputation in history established. In 1763, mercy had hardly begun to write her surviving poetry and would only seek to publish her work after the next decade. Schooled in the classics alongside her brother, she drew on ancient literary allusions in a way that was rare for women of her generation. Eventually, she would write plays set in greece or rome of antiquity. The varying themes, of contemporary political importance. She was an American Patriot and agitator, as was her younger brother, who she adored. As a man, however, his forum was the courtroom and newspaper, while she hardly dared advertise publicize her literary work. It was her husband who was her biggest supporter. Both abigail and john arranged for the publication of her work. As mercies allegiance and allegiance and confidence freezes her as an image as a matron of means, abigail is frozen in marriage and motherhood. Little is know about benjamin blythe, who recorded abigail and john adams during their visit in salem. Just as frustrating is the failure of either adams to mention these portraits in voluminous correspondence. In fact, blythes minor reputation probably derived from his having recorded the future president and first lady long before either had achieved fame. Blythe was born in salem, where he passed most of his productive years. He seems to have disappeared, perhaps into virginia, after revolutionary war. After the revolutionary war. He was probably selftaught, copying prints as well as american born artists who preceded him or were his contemporaries, and he worked primarily in pastels. His sole videographer has discovered as many as 40 pastels that either survive in local public collections or in private hands. The abigail of the blythe portrait is seated at a slight angle from the viewer. To the viewer. Her Left Shoulder recedes into shadow, though her face is highlighted, again by the shading on the right side, giving the impression she was frontly lit, perhaps by a candle. The shading gives dimension and depth to her figure. The face, its freshness, its calm, its intelligence, attracts immediate attention. It is the face of youth and highenergy. It is feminine and delicately colored in a manner that gives prominence to the eyes. Her thick, dark hair is gathered in a pink bow at the back of her neck, reflecting the pink in her face, the pearls, her lace collar, and her exposed bosom. Her dress is modest, echoing the blue turquoise of the plain background. If the perspective and proportions are wrong, the eye adjusts, distracted by the startling character that emerges from the somewhat awkward portrait. Abigails strong portrait appears in the vivid frontal stare of her dark eyes as well as the set of her mouth. As in the set of her mouth. She might be ready to speak, to move, and she is certainly taking in her surroundings. Perhaps, she was merely intrigued by observing blythe at at work, or by their conversation. She is an animated abigail. She is also an out of proportion abigail whose body appears large in comparison with of the head. By comparison with the head. I thought at first she might be pregnant, but that did not check out. Instead, i have come to believe the art historian, who suggested that enlarging a body was a painterly device for showing power or strength. That would seem to be the case here. This is no wilting flower of a woman, but rather, a charming and gracious, as well as strong woman. The pearls, i doubt abigail owned pearls at this time in her life. When many years later, she was preparing for an audience with the queen and king of england, john purchased her a set of pearls. These pearls, then, mark in the wedding portrait. It was a signifier of matronly status. ,lythe painted for the adamses the traditional status that colonial families acknowledged, family portraits at a significant transitional time in their life to be handed down for purposes of establishing family identity. Both images, copleys mercy and blythes abigail, are right for time and faileir to portray the passage of time. Abigail and mercy were introduced by john adams, who had been a companion to both a frequent visitor and companion to both james and mercy warren. He assessed that abigail would benefit from knowing the older warren. He brought his wife to visit the warrens. Following the first formal visit to the warrens home, abigail did the proper thing and wrote a courteous note to her hostess. The kind reception hello . There it is. The kind reception i met with at your house and the hospitality with which you entertained me demand my grateful acknowledgment, she wrote. By requesting a correspondence, you have kindly given me an opportunity to thank you for the happy hours i enjoyed whilst at your house. At your house. Continued, thus emboldened, i will not suffer my pride to debar me the pleasure and improvement i promise myself from this correspondence though i suffer by comparison. After many more paragraphs that listed the several grounds for her anticipated improvement, abigail signed off once more, sounding the refrain of deference that established the earliest relationship with Mercy Otis Warren. I must beg your pardon for this thus detaining you, i have neglected my pen and unconscious i may make a poor figure. To my friendship and candor, i commit this. Your obliged friend and humble servant, Abigail Adams. Remarkable for revealing her transparent struggles to set the correct stage, the letter exudes humility. Not just because of literary convention, but also because of person see your offer the because of the sincere awe for the learning and social position of her new acquaintance. Most unselfconsciously, she ascended to her best style with a felicitous use of a metaphor of a timorous bird. This combination of uncertainty and vivid imagery would mark her mark abigails early years of correspondence with mercy. It is a pasture frozen in time. Mercys magnanimous response likewise set the tone for their relationship. I shall pass over in silence the complementary introduction to your letter, not because these expressions of esteem are frequently words of course without any other design than to convey politeness as a characteristic of the person, but in you i consider anything of the kind as a natural result of a friendly heart disposed to think well of those who have not been guilty of any remarkable instance of depravity to create disgust. [laughter] edith mercys sincerity is equally apparent, but her letter carries as well a patronizing affectation of humility in its elaborate and obscure language. With all of her pretensions at to authorship, mercy had not the gift of simple, elegant prose. Her sentences, though typical of learned people of the time, lacked spontaneity and grace. They are wordy, overwrought, and ponderous. Mercy suffered from the 18th century equivalent of 21st century academic jargon. Her posture, too, was frozen in time. These letters set the stage for the early relationship between mercy and abigail, with inbalance created by differences in age, but also social class, personal style, and ambition. These letters further provide a snapshot portrait of two women at a moment in history not just of their personal lives come but arsonal lives, narrative starting point for the narrative that will be written by their pr covers for several centuries. Abigail was 29 years old when she initiated the correspondence, mercy was 45. Both women were married to men destined to be political leaders in the revolution that they did not yet know was developing. Both were mothers. Mercy, by 1773, had given birth to five sons. Abigail had three Young Children and would give birth to one more surviving son. Mercy had grown up in the prosperous otis home in barnstable, where she was educated by the same tutors that taught her brother. By 1773, she was already writing poetry and beginning to write the political plays that expressed her alliance for the colonial cause. Abigails education had been more rudimentary, in the modest waymouth rectory of her father. Clergyman father and her quincy mother. Through serious education and politics, literature and history, it took place after her marriage to john adams. Through their discussions and later as he read she read in his library during his long years of absence, abigails expressive medium would always be letters. The early friendship of abigail and mercy, based on many factors, was strongly predicated on their marriage to patriots in public service. Both women were undoubtedly attracted to their husbands because of the same qualities that lured these men into politics. What neither women anticipated was that politics would remove her husband from family for long periods of time. Abigail and mercy adjusted easily to what they called widowhood during their husbands years of service to colonial independence. Their triumphs and difficulties were made more meaningful as they described her circumstances to each other in letters. The letters at first described indignation at the abuses committed by the british government. The tea, that baneful weed, has arrived. I hope opposition has been made to the landing of it. Abigail continued, in the hopes mercy had not yet heard the news. By the style and spirit of yours, of the fifth of december, one would judge he was affected by the shocks of the political as the natural constitution, responded the more restrained and rational mercy. Though i hope we have less to dread than you apprehend, for its cathartic and sometimes pretty violent exercises recommended by a physician has benefited by the latter, and the shaking of the arteries may be no less salutary to the former, drawing on a medical metaphor to refer to the indians who staged the recent boston tea party. Time passed. Both women suffered the harshness of wired. Still writing to each other, their letters revealed that different styles of coping with their difficulties. A greater sacrifice to the , had iby gold and silver yet to bestow. Living apart from the best companions of our lives is exceedingly disagreeable to us both. But you have sisters at hand, and many agreeable friends around you, which i have not. Argued the greater deprivation. A different pattern developed. Moran 1776, james warren declined a seat on the supreme court. Everything to persuade him, but his lady was against it. I am much grieved and little vexed at your refusal of a seat on the bench. John adams continued to serve more offices. Warren declined positions, but sometimes he ran for office and lost. Over the years, each couple became less sympathetic for the others position. The correspondence between abigail and mercy took a different turn. Why have you not written . And later, is mrs. Adams so wholly engrossed with the idea of her own happiness to think little of the absent . Why should i interrupt, if this is the case . By the city vivac ity. Encircled by her children in full health to look in upon her friend in this hour of solitude. My eldest son absent, the other ill with smallpox, my father in pain, edging closer. No friend to shorten the tedious hours. Mercy had problems. Abigail responded, in kind. You, my friend, then experienced some measure of what i passed through. Only with this difference that your friend was within a days ride of you, mine hundreds of miles distance. The tone of the letters has changed. The imbalance of age and status disappeared, not only because of their greater familiarity with one another, but also because the conditions of the war had leveled their circumstances. Abigail and mercy continued to correspond. There now existed a clear, antagonistic, competitive and critical edge to their letters. No small part of this posture had to do with the situation of husbands and children. By midsummer 1776, john was eager to take leave of his position at the Continental Congress and he wrote, begging for a replacement. Send palmer or lincoln, if you will. Somebody must send. Come yourself, by all means. I should have mentioned you in the first place. James warren responded, i know not how to fill your place. Why do you fix yourselves down anyplace so unhealthy . Is there no other continent to which he might adjourn the summer months . Meanwhile, warren turned down yet another appointment. This time to serve as Major General and the massachusetts militia. All was not well in the warren household during the summer of 1776. James warren junior, their eldest son, a student at harvard suffered a nervous breakdown. Mercy was terrified that his condition would recapitulate that of her brother, whose mental instability had grown quite serious. A sympathetic abigail wrote to john, our friend has some family difficulties. A partner dear to him, beyond description, almost heartbroken by the situation of one dear to her, but do not mention the matter. Tis a wound that cannot be touched. At the end of 1777, john adams was appointed to negotiate a treaty of alliance. Abigail was devastated about him going abroad and she called on her friendship with mercy to sympathize with her distress. Mercys response was unwelcome. Great advantages are often attended with great inconveniences, she pontificated. I think i know your fortitude to be such that you will throw no impediment in his way. She also noted that johns particular genius was required for the task. She added, you cannot avoid anticipating the advantages that will probably be dammed from this honorable embassy, for yourself, your children and your country. Mercy minimized abigails distress. She rationalized johns absence in terms of future material advantages to the adams. The irony of mercys urging abigail to accept the sacrifice, in light of her own reluctance to be separated from her husband, was not lost on abigail. This was not a response that she wished to read, and if she answered mercy, the letter does not survive. Thereafter, the correspondence lapsed to a few perfunctory letters about business or the war. Mercy continued to write plays and poetry, but mostly about the war and drawing on classical literary themes. At the end of the revolutionary war, when john adams did not come home because he was waiting to hear from congress about an appointment to the ministry to great britain, abigail decided to travel to europe with her daughter to be with him. The adams were abroad for four years while the new Constitutional Government was enacted and returned home in time for john i do not know what goes there. After another eight years, he served his one term as president. Abigails star had risen. No longer the bright, young provincial painted in 1776. She had resided in the Capital Cities of france and england, and traveled in court circles. She lived at the vortex of the political and social life of the new nation and she was, in her time, a celebrity, and she learned to use power. Mercy experienced a series of catastrophes within her family. In addition to financial setbacks, caused by the war and james several defeats, the sons did not fare well. James junior, after he recovered from his breakdown at harvard, joined the navy and was severely wounded and suffered the amputation of a leg. Charles contracted tuberculosis and died in route to europe. George failed at several businesses and died of disease in 1800. Winslow, probably mercys favorite, was a rascal. Despite her many efforts to redeem him. He died in a military expedition to the northwest territory. Only henry, the next youngest, the next two youngest, the youngest, had a successful career, marriage and life. Family difficulties aside, they felt politically betrayed by the revolution. They sympathized with the rebellion, disapproved of the new constitution and feared that the government was leaning towards monarchy. Like Many Americans of their social class, they were quite financially devastated. Under the circumstances, mercy attempted to use her influence with old friends to gain political patronage for her husband and her several sons. One of the powerful men that she approached was john adams. His response could not have been more offputting. After rehearsing their many differences, he continued, you are pleased to say, madame, that you are sure of our patronage for certain purposes. In the first place, i have no patronage. In the next, neither your children nor mine could be sure, if i had it. Johns message could not have gone down well. All the while, despite her grief, disappointment and setbacks, she kept busy. It was her method of survival. Encouraged always in assisting in numerous ways by both of the adams, mercy was at work on her magnum opus, that she would publish in 1805. Her history her history of the rise, progress and termination of the American Revolution is remarkable work, lucidly constructed, masterfully researched and distinctly, the work of a woman. History makes good reading today. One man had cause to complain about it, and complain he did. John adams was outraged at the attention, or rather the lack of attention she gave to his role as a shaper of the revolution. His worst fear had been realized. He had been, if not written out of the revolution, been relegated to a minor role. He could not restrain himself from an acrimonious rebuttal. Rebut he did. In a series of letters that represent a low point in his writing career. History is not the province of the ladies. That was his final outburst. Mercy responded with moderation, patience and reason. He erupted with further wrath, and she terminated the exchange. Abigail, who typically supported johns position stood outside of the dispute. Despite the many conflicts, contests and disagreements that took place over a lifetime, there were more than i have described in this brief outline. Abigail and mercy stayed in touch. What pulled them together, despite their differences, their strongest bond was their shared experiences as women, their roles as wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and nieces. What was most salient, their brilliance of mind, character and personality. Their shared impulse to write, their fierce loyalty, first to their husbands, children and country. They were proud women, proud to be women and straight into areas strayed into areas beyond culturally determined boundaries for women of their time. They both knew the pain of the death of children. They had good marriages and they survived the upheaval of a revolution by holding fast to their values. Two portraits, the one painted and frozen in time, the other, words written over a lifetime. Two portraits and each tells a story. One visual static, the other dynamic but unseen. Together, they provide us with a satisfying narrative about a past that is unable to compete. Complete. We would benefit greatly with pictures of abigail and murphy as elder matrons. Only abigail posed for such a portrait with gilbert stewart, a masterpiece that demonstrates what her written words have told us, that she became a woman of great warmth, wisdom and power. Mercy did not sit for another portrait. The record is poorer for this lapse. She was described as a hesitant bird. The youthful abigail had described herself in visual terms as a to morris timorous bird. Mercy, determined to set her younger acolyte at ease and extravagantly learn in rhetoric. Each statement may be read as a dynamic description of the identity and ego of its author. A reading of the correspondence over a near halfcentury of time presents another image, no longer was abigail a differential, no longer is mercy patronizing. Deferential, no longer is mercy patronizing. Both women have changed. Abigails star had risen and mercys had declined. A weathered hardship during the war that occurred on their doorstep. Both had matured into the fullness of old age and witness of the emerging of a new nation, each in her own character and experience. Their friendship was tried and endured. The war had altered their temperament. Their unique friendship explained as their private odyssey of the result of a long relationship in which age indeed mellowed the differences between them. It is telling about an essential transformation that occurred as part of a political revolution. The claims of social hierarchy, of right independent were challenged. The movement for equality was legitimized. The politics, implicit in the portraits of 18thcentury women resonates with historians that the American Revolution, represented a radical break with the past. It did so by demolishing the structures of deference that had governed the social, political and economic interactions of the earlier period. The theme of equality, resonating and the rhetoric of the American Revolution materialized in real relationships, as highlighted by the subjects of this paper. The remarkable friendship of Abigail Adams we capitulated the changing face of American Culture over the 50 year period from the time their images were captured in portraits to the time they wrote their final letters to each other. In a final tribute to abigail, during her last days in october, 1814, mercy requested of her son, tell my dear mrs. Adams to write to me or to see me very soon, or else we only meet in heaven. We see in this message, after her friends death at the age of 87, abigail wrote, we shall not see her likes again. String after string is severed from the heart. The lamp of life burned bright until the last. Seldom does old age, so pleasing, so instructive an aspect. To me, she was a friend of more than 50 summers ripening. Abigail lived for four more years. [applause] edith i would be happy to answer questions. Yes. Go ahead. Did they ever meet facetoface . Edith yes. They visited. We do not know what transpired during the visits. Not only did they visit, but their children visited. Abigail encouraged her daughter to stay with mercy for months at a time. Abigail did this because she wanted her daughter to benefit from mercy as a model. Yes. They do. They make fascinating reading. Yes. They do. I am not sure if they are in print. I am quite sure that you can find them in print. Which is the final portrait of abigail . Edith it was done between 1800 and 1815 because stuart never finished. John quincy had to encourage them to finish the portrait. It is beautiful. That is in the quincy home. Yes. Michelle. Ok. Gilbert stuart. Actually, above the portraits of abigail, it was very difficult to find out information about them because they did not write about the early portraits. It is not clear where they went, most of the time. They ended up there at the mass historical society. Yes. Did mercy get the chance to travel at all . Edith no. She traveled in the bay area here, but that is it. Did abigail have correspondence with anybody else . Edith did abigail have other regular correspondence . She wrote to her sisters all the time. Her letters to her sisters are wonderful. Very lengthy letters. For a long time, she lived in the same neighborhood with her sister, mary, so she did not write when they were neighbors. When they were apart, she wrote to them. To nieces and nephews. In her older age, she was developing correspondence with people i had never heard of and young people. She would carry on a lengthy correspondence with different people, and then there are sporadic letters. A lot of them are thank you for your invitation, we will be glad to accept or my condolences. They are formal letters. Of course, jefferson. The correspondence is magnificent. Thank you. Were mercys plays ever performed . Edith yes. Theater was not something that happened a lot in the colonies. It took a very long time, but yes. Through all your research, we know that she was a great educator. Was anything learned that was very special . I work with a school program. I am wondering we are working on recognizing. Edith she promoted womens education. She had her daughter tutored in latin, alongside the brothers. Yes. Remember the latin. John adams wrote to her and said it is fine, but do not tell anybody. She always asked, men are educated, shouldnt women be equally educated . She was very big on education. [indiscernible] edith yes. On the corner of main street and middle street. Edith there you go. Yes. Women use their letters. It was a form of education. Edith i think that they learned from each other a great deal. The way that people learned how to write was copying from books. They would copy a lot from books. That was a method of learning penmanship. Yes, mercy recommended it to abigail one correspondence in particular was that she recommended childrearing advice books. There were such things at the time as childrearing books. Yes. You had a question . [indiscernible] edith it makes sense. Yes. What am i working on now . I am working on rehabilitating the reputation of thomas adams. The youngest son, whose reputation is under clouds. I like him. I know him through abigails eyes and through their correspondence. I want the world to know that thomas was a really good guy. [indiscernible] edith this takes us back a year or two. I was coming of age as a scholar at the same time that the Womens Movement started. I was educated in colonial american history. I wanted to work on a woman. I said, this is a good story. If you remember the 1970s, there was very little literature available on women in the 1970s. I started looking for a way to do history of the colonial period, and i wanted to write a biography. There was poetry and there was abigail and mercy. I read them both and i thought, which one of these women should i work on the next many years . It was one of the great, good fortunes of my life that i worked on abigail. Good question. [indiscernible] edith when i started reading, i read the original. I read originals on microfilm for a decade. That is one reason that i worked on abigail for as many years. I read microfilm. I could read the worst penmanship of all was her sister. She wrote very long letters, and i would labor over her letters. I can remember spending three weeks on one of her letters, just to get through it. Page after page. I worked on microfilm and copied them on index cards. The consequence of that, i am very pleased to have done it that way. You do not have to take a picture of anything, but it goes from the hand into the brain and the heart. I became quite familiar with it. Thank you for that question. She had a lot of disappointment. [indiscernible] did they correspond about that . Edith no. Abigail said,tis a wound that you cannot touch. Do not talk about it. Yes. Has your opinion or attitude changed . Edith we have gotten to be better friends. What is your opinion of them and has it changed . Edith i know a lot more now. Im very familiar with it because i edited the letters and i read all 2500 of them, time after time, many times. I know the extent of the letters very well. My fondness and admiration have only grown over the years. She was always a model for every one of us