Abigail would grow to be an equal of john adams. Confident and dearest friend. She has really revealed to herself as yes as an 18th century woman, but her concern some very modern to us today. John and Abigail Adams had become so prominent in the minds of americans because of this collection of papers and publications that have opened up to the world. The story of Abigail Adams and the revolutionary war is the story of sacrifice and commitment to country. Abigail rose to the occasion. Abigail was adamantly opposed to slavery. She was a the scenes kind of women. She warned her husband. You cannot rule without including what women want and what women have to contribute. The backdrop to the and to the adams brief occupancy in the white house is one of political defeat and personal tragedy. She is worried about her husband and defensive against slander. Shes concerned about her children, their upbringing and education. She could hold her own with anybody in her own time and since. She was in every way, her husbands equal. Born and 1744, Abigail Smith mary john adams at age 19. Over 54 years of marriage, they had five children together, including a future president. Ahead of her time in many ways and a writer perhaps some parallel to any first lady, abigail pens this to her husband during the american revolution. All history at every age, exhibits instances of patriotic virtue in the female sex, which considering our situation equals the most heroic of yours. Good evening and welcome to cspans first ladies influence and image. For the next 90 minutes, we will be learning more about abigail we will be learning more about Abigail Adams a second lead of the United States. We have people at the table who spent most of their professional careers learning about the adams and learning their writings to the public. Let me introduce them to you, edith gelles author of numerous books. Abigail items, a writing life. And portrait of a marriage. Jim taylor is the editor in chief of the adams papers of the massachusetts historical society. Thanks to both of you and welcome. Edith, Abigail Adams by the virtue of the fact of being the wife of the second president and the mother of another president earned her place in history. You say in your book, and she is a historical figure in her own right. Primarily, because she left those letters. We have a record of her life. Her letters are not ordinary. They are extraordinary. Air wonderfully written, and there are many of them. Abigail was a letter writer at a time when women could not publish for publication. Her letters became her outlet. They are the best record we have of womens roles in the american revolution, and for the period of the Early National government of the United States. Last week in the Martha Washington chronicle we learned with great sorrow that Martha Washington burnt all of her letters. Her correspondence with her husband george. Only two of them remained. Weve got the opposite here. Thousands and thousands of them. Explain the scope of the trove of the materials that you have to work with as scholars through the writings of the adams family. The adams family gave to the massachusetts historical society, a collection. Weve never encountered them individually, but probably 70,000 press documents over several generations, and probably about 300,000 pages. For abigail and jon, which is the most important of the collection, there are about 1170 letters that they exchanged over the years. How frequently did the right one another . It depended. When they were together, for example, we do not have any letters after 1801, because after john leaves the white house, they are together almost all the time, but for periods, for example, when it was fairly regular mail delivery between massachusetts and philadelphia, later washington, d. C. , they wrote at least once or twice a week. It was like phone calls. This one was an Interactive One which makes it interactive for all of us. In 15 minutes will be taking your calls and we will put the phone numbers on the screen so you can phone and with a question. There are two other ways you can be involved as well. If you go to twitter and use the hashtag first ladies or include some of your tweets, questions by twitter, and you can also go to cspans Facebook Page and there is a spot where you can send in questions tonight. I will start with a facebook comment. Sophia writes, she looks like a tough cookie. By looking at the words of abigail, which in fact a tough cookie . Oh my goodness. No yes and no. In fact, one of the things that is important to understand about abigail. She started out as a naive, young woman, whose expectations were to have a normal life like her mother did. The revolution disrupted that. Her whole life shifted. This is one of the reasons she had become such a great model for us as women. She used the opportunity of this disruption in her life to grow as a person. She begins as a naive, young, and she does become a very sophisticated, worldly, opinionated, kind women. This is one of the things that makes her most attractive. A good character and a novel develops overtime. She is like a good character in a novel. She develops. What were her roots . Where was she born and what was her upbringing, such that she became a woman of letters . He was the daughter of a minister. Reverend william smith. Her mother was descended from, if there was nobility in new england, the clergy and the political world of new england of massachusetts colony, so that her mothers family or the nortons. Quincys. She grew up in a household that was middle class for that time. She had two sisters and one brother. She did not go to any kind of public school, of which there were a few, but was educated at home by her mother. She read at random at her fathers library. In the course of reading her writings, that should become political and can you describe the politics . Im trying to think. Very early on when john is active in congress, she craves news. She wants the newspaper some philadelphia. She wants pamphlets when they were published. One of the things we know that shes consuming the news at that time. All the news was printed. She begins, i would say, by the middle 17 seventies, she is on board. And what capacity . What is her political thinking . She was an ardent revolutionary. She was very supportive, not only in revolution, but the fact that john was participating, as a matter of fact, they were partners in everything that he did. As a matter of fact, at some point, he writes to her, thanking her for being a part in the activities. Later on, i think she is, i would say, perhaps more conservative and john when it came to national politics. We will be looking at some of her letters throughout the program. But a very famous one is, and we use it in the open, was her, remember the ladies. That is a letter that is of particular interest you. Youre right at the scope of it, we always hear that section is really much broader. Why is that letter significant and understanding Abigail Adams . The letter does many things. She my sense of abigail is that she wrote at night. She would enter a reverie in which she just filed her thought patterns, wherever they went. She changes topics and her letters very many times. It starts out with a political statement about why the southerners can flavor can favor slavery and still be doing a rebellion against a tyranny. And she questions that. Then she moves on in the middle of a paragraph. She makes the, remember the ladies statement. It goes on further to suggest that if john did not like this idea, actually it was a remarkable thing, because he was actually in a position to do something, to make a change. He was on the committee that was drafting the declaration of independence. So that he actually could have made a move for womens rights at that time. It is remarkable that she did suggest that. What powers were in the society at the time . That they could publish under their own names . How could women could be influential if they could not vote . It is a much more subtle thing, in the same way that if many times, a decision is made even today, and people think that the husband makes the decision. There is a Kitchen Table discussion that goes on before that, and i think that probably, in the adams household, there were a lot of Kitchen Table discussions between john and abigail. Abigail may not have been most obvious and making decisions, but i think that she influenced john a lot. We know much later after the revolution, she is very influential in helping him and his political career. What the country looked like an 1800. John adams was leaving office. We have some statistics will put on screen to give you some of the scope. For example, by that point the census in 1800 interestingly was done by John Marshall who went to the Supreme Court and ultimately done by secretary of state james madison. Familiar names from history and the job of the census. Chief at that time. The population was 5. 3 million across 16 states. There were 998,000 blacks, about 19 of the population. Only 12 of them were free. That 5. 3 million was a 35 growth just in ten years since the nine 1790 census. The average Life Expectancy if you were born in 1800 was just 39 years. The largest cities in the country were new york, philadelphia and baltimore. A change from ten years ago. What are sort of the things we can take away from the statistics of that snapshot of america . One of the things is there is an expansion going on. This is one of the things that is very difficult for the adams. Politics are changing. The changing politics means they are new england ours. There are new and as time goes by the population moves south and westwards. It makes it more difficult for politics, we will invite your telephone calls. I am told that you want to read us a passage from one of the letters. I would like to remark on the 39 year lifespan. That is not exactly accurate to the extent that if children died much more rapidly. If a child survived to 12, probably, the lifespan was much longer, and many many people lived into their seventies as the adams did. How many of them survived to adulthood out of their five children . For. For . You are getting a passage ready for us. You want to read us that letter we talked about earlier, remember the ladies . In this particular letter, abigail was ruminating about conditions and her life and what was going on in her world. She says, i long to hear that you had declared an independence. She knew john was on this committee. And by the way, in the new code of laws, which i suppose it will be necessary for you to make, i desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them and your ancestors. Which is a bold and remarkable statement for a woman to have made and that era. Based on the relationship that we see detailed and the letters, would it have been a surprising thing for her to say to john adams . No. I do not think so at all. As i go back to the Kitchen Table, im sure that before he wrote off to philadelphia, she filled his ear with a lot of ideas along the way. Im john and in his response notes that there are several groups of people, servants, slaves, etc. Theyve also moved during this time to think about their rights and what was her viewpoint on slavery . She was opposed to slavery. She had a servant. A black servant, who in fact had been a sleeve of her fathers. I think the woman had what was the story . Phoebe. Did she have the right to be free or continue as a servant . Abigail cared for her for the rest of her life. After her parents died. Abigail cared for her. In fact, she lived in their house. But the adamsbusiness was a farm. How did they manage to work farm . What kind of labrador used to support family labor . They had hired labor. It became very problematic problematic for abigail during the war, the whole situation of having labor on the land. I want to go back to the letter just a little bit, because you mentioned johns response to her. What she does in this letter in addition to saying, why is it that southerners could support a revolution when they themselves keep people in slavery . And she goes on and says, remember the ladies. And she says, if you do not pay tension to this, we ladies are going to form our own rebellion. Then it goes on further to say, you should treat us the same way that god treats people. She invokes the hierarchy. In this one letter, she brings out so many ideas. I would suggest that her threat to fermented revolution was, is indicative of one of the ways that the adamsrelated to each other. A teased each other. It sounds to me like every group, any tribe is going to make a revolution. Jokes are a way that people have of deescalating an argument. And it brings it down one of the ways in which they related it seems to me. Hes too prolific letter writers, how did they meet each other . They met at her fathers house. He went as a dinner guest with a friend. A lifelong friend, Richard Grant who then married the elder sister of abigail. Abigail was not even 15 at that time. John was not, at least in his diary, not particularly enthusiastic about her at first. But apparently, things changed over the years. He was nine years older than her. He was 23 or 24. He also had a girlfriend at the time. The amazing story is that he was about to propose to this woman, and one of his friends burst in and broke the mode, i guess you would say. Then she went off and married someone else. It came within a whisker, or at least proposal to propose to someone else. He was a lawyer. With that have been a profession that her family would have appreciated her falling for . The family lore suggested that it wasnt. When Charles Francis adams wrote about it, he suggested that her family disapproved of her marrying a lawyer, which she was also very young when she met him. It were being protective of her as well. Miss john political at that point . Did you know she was going to be choosing a life of politics . Now when you about the revolution coming. This is one thing we have to keep in mind. All of this is happening at a very time when there is no revolution. There is no revolution on the horizon. They think of themselves as british people. Sure, he was interested in politics the way young men were. He was running for office by this time, wasnt he . He was very political. His trajectory was to be a great lawyer in massachusetts. That is what he saw. He was following that line. He probably would have been. It is important to note, because these two were married for 54 years, and as we are hearing from our guests, were great partners. This was in the beginning, even if it was not a love match, it grew to become one. We have an us as an example one letter. This is called the miss adorable letter. We will show this to you next. What is so appealing about the family series is the intimacy that the letters reveal. The earliest letter we have dates to october 1762. We call it the, miss adorable letter. That is how john adams opens the letter. John rights to abigail and he says, miss adorable, by the same token that the mayor here of sat up with you last night, i hereby order you to give him as many kisses and as many hours of your company after 9 00, as he shall pleas to demand, and charge them to my account. He continues, i presume i have good right to draw new for the kisses as i have given two or 3 million at least. When one has been received, and the consequence that counts between us is immensely in favor of yours. Very teasing, affectionate time. Theres just some wonderful moments in these correspondents. Its fun to bring these founding fathers, people we see in these very two dimensional poses come to life, and have real human personalities. These people were clearly having fun and enjoying one another. I think this is one of the most appealing things about sean and abigail. Particularly john and abigail. They have a life that you can follow because of the documents. You see them in good times and in that. You see death in the family. You see triumph. It is it is like downtown abby, but it is not exactly. It is a wonderful story because we have so many of those documents. Theres texture there that you dont have it the other founders. Half based on what youve described. Her admonitions to john about remembering the ladies. Elliott wants to know on twitter. Would you say Abigail Adams was the mother of womens rights in the United States . One of the things that we know by reading abigails letters was that women were aware of their subordinate role in the 18th century. When you have abigails letters, where she writes about this, we know that she was not exemplary. Other women in her period of time, her good friend mercy for instance, was totally agreeing with her. And totally a colleague. I think that one of the things we have learned in the Womens Movement and early twenties at 24 century is that we can trace the movement for womens rights back further and further and history. Abigail happens to be an outstanding example, because she left us letters that say these things. She also is very eloquent. Not everyone could write like abigail. Abigail was a wonderful writer. I first telephone call comes from chan, from new york city. Hi. While abigail was one of the first Great American female riders, she can also be acknowledged that she was a four mother despite john quincy since one son committed suicide and another one dragged him self to death . When she had good mother . Yes. She was a very good mother. We live in a post floridian world where something goes wrong inside of a family, the mother gets the blame. First of all, these children are living through a revolution. Their father was not at home for 25 years. She was doing at all by herself. She was coping in a situation which was extraordinary. I think that applying 20th 21st century standards to mothering, and even the psychology that has developed in the early 20th century does not fly for the 18th century. Mary up next. Hi mary. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. What is the relationship between abigail and Thomas Jefferson . Did abigail and Thomas Jefferson correspond during john and thomas is year of not really speaking to each other . Ive also heard that abigail was really hadnt