She rose to the occasion. She was opposed to slavery. She was quiet behindthe scenes spread sheet you cannot rule without including what women want. The backdrop to the occupancy of the white house is one of political personal tragedy. She is worried about her husband and offenses against slander. She is concerned about her children, their upbringing, their education. She could hold her own with anybody. She was her husbands equal. Born in 1744, at the dell smith married john adams at age 19. They had five children together, including a future president. Ahead of her time in many ways she pence this to our has been during the american revolution. All history at every age exhibits instances of patriotic fervor to the most heroic. Good evening and welcome to first ladys. We will be learning more about Abigail Adams. The second first lady of the United States. We have two guests. Bringing their ridings to those public. The author of numerous books. Jim taylor is the editorin chief of the adams papers. Thank you to both of you. Abigail adams was the wife of the second president and a mother of another president earned her place in history. You say that she is an historical figure in her own right. She left us letters and we have a record of for life. The letters are not ordinary. They are extraordinary. They are 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 per outlet and they are the best record behalf of womens role and the american revolution. Cooks last week last week, we learned that Martha Washington burned all of her letters. Only two of them remain. We have the opposite here. Thousands of them. Explain the scope of the trove of materials that you have to work with as scholars to the writings of the adams family. The Addams Family gave to the Massachusetts Historical Society of collection. We have never counted them individually, but probably 70,000 plus documents. For abigail and john, there are about 1170 letters they exchanged over the years. How frequently did they write to one another . Depended. When they were to gather, we do not have any letters after 1801. After john leave the white house, theyre together almost all the time. They wrote and least once a week and sometimes twice a week. Cut this program is an attractive one, which makes it more enjoyable. In about 50 minutes, we will be taking your telephone calls. We will put the numbers on the screen. If you go to twitter, we will include some of your tweets. You can also go to facebook and we posted a spot for you can send questions. I will start with a facebook comment. She looks like a tough cookie. , my goodness. Yes and no. One of the things that is important to understand is that she started out as a naive young woman whose expectations were to have a normal life like a mother deaid. The revolution disrupted that. She used the opportunities of this disruption in her life to grow as a person. She begins as a naive young woman and she does become a very sophisticated world league opinionated kind women. This is one of the things that makes him the most attractive. A good character in a novel develops over time. She develops. What were her roots . Where was she born . What was her upbringing such that she became a woman of letters . She was the daughter of the minister, reverend william smith. Her mother attended the political world of new england. Her mothers family were nortons and quincys. She grew up in a household that was quite middleclass for that time and had two sisters and one brother. She was by all reports she was educated at home by her mother. She ran at random in her fathers library. When did she become political . I am trying to think. Very early on when john is at the continental congress, she wants the newspapers. She wants pamphlets when they are published. One of the things she is considering the news at that time. Consuming the news at that time. She begins by the middle 17 70s, she is on board. What capacity . What is your political thinking . She was a revolutionary, she was very supportive. The fact that john was participating, they were partners. At some point, he writes to her eyes thanking her for being a partner. Later on, i think she is more conservative than john in some ways when it came to national politics. We will be looking at some of her letters to about the program. A very famous one is was to remember the ladies. That is a letter that is of particular interest to you. Why does that letter it significant in understanding Abigail Adams . The letter does many things. She wrote at night and she would enter a kind of rivalry in which she followed her thought pattern wherever she went. She changes topics in her letters. It starts out with a political statement about why the southerners favored slavery and are still doing a rebellion against the tyranny. And she questions that. And then she goes on and in the middle of a paragraph, remember the ladies. And then goes on further to suggest that if china did not like this idea if john did not like this idea, it was a remarkable thing because he was in a position to do something. He was on the committee that was drafting a declaration of independence. He could have made a move for womens rights. It is remarkable that she did suggest that. Give us a sense of the role women have in society. They could not vote. How could women be influential . It is much more subtle. In the same way many times, a decision is made, people think that the husband makes the decision. There is a Kitchen Table discussion that goes on before that. In the adams household, there were a lot of Kitchen Table discussions between john and abigail. I the deal may not have been more most obvious at the domain not have been most obvious in making the decisions. We know much later after the revelation revolution that he is very influential. I want to tell you a little bit about what the country looks like in 1800. We have some statistics we will put on screen to give you some of the scope. By that point, John Marshall went on to the supreme court. The population was 5. 3 million across 16 states. Heyre run 990,000 blacks 5. 3 million was a 35 growth in the country. The average Life Expectancy was 39 years. The largest cities were new york, philadelphia, baltimore. What are some of the things we should take away from those statistics . One of the things is there is an expansion going on. This is one of the things that is very difficult for the adams because politics are changing and changing politics means they are new englanders. As time goes by, as the population moved south and west, and makes it more difficult for politics they believe in. We will invite your telephone calls. I am told you want to read a passage. I would like to remark on the 39year life span. That is not exactly accurate to the extent that children died much more rapidly. If a child survived to 12, a life span was much longer. The five children, how many of them survive to adulthood . Four. You wanted to read from the letter we talked about earlier . In this particular letter, she was ruminating about conditions in her life and what was going on in her world. I would like to hear that you have declared independence. By the way, i desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Which is a bold and remarkable statement for a woman to of made in that era. The relationship we have seen, would it have been a surprising thing for her to say . Were back to the Kitchen Table. I am sure that before he rode off to philadelphia, she filled this year with a lot of ideas along the way. John and his response knows that there are several groups of people, servants, slaves, also moved during this time to think about their rights and their independence. What was your viewpoint on slavery . She was opposed to slavery. She had a servant, a black servant, who had been a slave of for fathers. I think the woman what was the story . Did she have the right to be free after i cannot remember. Abigail cared for her for the rest of for life. She lived in their house. How did they manage to work the farm . What kind of labour did they use . They did have hired laborer. It became very problematic for abigail. I want to go back to the letter. You mentioned johns response and what she does in this letter in addition to saying, why is it that southerners can support our revolution when they keep people in slavery . Remember the ladies and then she says, if you do not Pay Attention to this, rebellion. And then it goes on further to say that you should treat us the same way that god treats people. In this one letter, she brings up so many ideas. I would suggest that her indicative of one of the ways the adams related to each other. His response to her was 80s also. It sounds to me that every group is going to make a revolution. Her response to her was a tease also. One of the ways in which theyre related, it seems to me. How did they meet each other . They met at her fathers house. He went as a dinner guest with a lifelong friend. He then married the elder sister. Abigail was not yet to 15 at that time john was not enthusiastic about her at first. A pyramid, things changed over the years. Apparently, things changed over the years. He was 9 years older than her. He had a girlfriend at the time. He was about to propose to this woman and one of his friends burst in and broke the mood and she went off and married somebody else. He was a lawyer. Would that have been a profession that her family would have appreciated . The family lore suggest that it was not. Her family disapproved of for meriting a lawyer. Of kurt marry in a lawyer. Was john political at that point . No one knew about the revolution. All of this is happening when there is no revolution. There is no revolution on the horizon. He was interested in politics. His trajectory was to be a lawyer in massachusetts. He was following that line. It is important to know because these to marry these two were married for 54 years. They were great partners. Even though it was not a love match in the beginning, it grew to become one. 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. It was john reiskin to abigail writing to abigail. I hereby order you to give him as many kisses and as many hours of your company after 9 00 at sea shall please to demand. And charge them to my count. I presume i have good right to draw upon you for the kisses as i had given two or three millions that least. The accounts between us is immensely in favor of yours. Very teasing affectionate tones. Wonderful moments. Fun to bring these founding fathers, people that we see in these twodimensional poses, come to life and have real personalities. These people enjoyed one another. This is one of the most appealing things about john and abigail. They have a life that you can follow because of the documents. You see them in good times and in bad. You see death and the family, you see triumph. It. Donwton abbey. It is like downton abbey. Brenda elliotts on twitter wants to know what you say she was the mother of womens rights in the United States . One of the things that we know is that women were aware of their subordinate role in the 18th century. Because we have those letters, we know that she was not exemplary. Her good friend was agreeing with her and a colleague. I think that one of the things we have learned in the Womens Movement is that we can trace the movement for womens rights back further and further in history. She happens to be an outstanding example because she left us letters that say these things. She was also very eloquent. She was a wonderful writer. This telephone call comes from new york city. Good evening. She certainly was one of the first Great American female writers, she was also a poor mother. Another son committed suicide. What she a good mother . Yes, a very good mother. We live in a postfreudian world in which when something goes wrong inside of a family, the mother gets the blame. The children were living through a revolution. Their father was not at home for 25 years. She was doing it all by herself. She was coping in a situation which was extraordinary. I think that applying 21st century standards to mothering and even the psychology that has developed in the early early 20thcentury does not fly for the 18th century. Mary is up next from california. Thank you for taking my call. I am interesting in finding out the relationship between abigail and Thomas Jefferson. Did they correspond during jaunts year of not speaking to each other . Ive also heard that abigail had an intimate relationship with him as far as correspondents went. They were very good friends at one time. The highest point of the relationship was when abigail was in france and then in england and Thomas Jefferson was a diplomat abroad at that time. For a while, while jefferson was in paris and she was in london, they kept accounts for one another. At one point, one of jeffersons daughters came from virginia and stopped in london and abigail took care of for during that time. During the National Period it when after the election of 1800, the relationship really fell apart. It was over politics. During that time, abigail was very disappointed with jefferson. Next up is not in wisconsin. Matt in wisconsin. I was wondering what some of the intellectual influences on her writing was. Thank you. Did she have influences . She was a great leader. Reader. She read the bible. When we do the research on her letters, if she is quoting somebody or citing somebody, we want to identify who is. Sometimes, she does not use quotation marks. I would say the things she quoted most often were things that she referenced with shakespeare, the bible, the classics. This next call is from quincy, massachusetts. Hello. Congratulations on having this wonderful series on the first ladies. I live in quincy, mass. And we are very lucky see and experience the adams life of close every day. My comment would be about abigail sentiment about remembering the ladies. I think she pretty much women can change destinies, of nations and the world if they said their mind to it. It is very important because women are the primary factors in breeding of the children. In bringing up the children. She was instrumental in the constitution and the forming of this nation. Quincey is actually called the birthplace of the american dream. She may not be formally recognized, but she definitely had a very Important Role in shaping womens place in this country and in history. Thank you. The caller was from quincey. We will taking next to the quincey home as they prepared to tell you the story of the revolutionary times. The story of abigail lagens Abigail Adams is a story of sacrifice and commitment to country. For the first 10 years, they lived in this column, from 17641774. It is where they raise their four children. This is the birthplace of their second child, John Quincy Adams, who went on to become president of the United States. The primary link between she and john adams would be a letter writing. It was from this house that he was provided a window into what was happening back here in the colony of massachusetts. She would report to john about the militia in boston. During the battle of bunker hill, should to occur at sun she took her son and she would watch the battle of bunker hill with her son and reports about the fires and smoke. She was the eyes of the revolution to john adams and the Second Continental Congress in philadelphia. We are in need in the parlor, were at the hub of the classroom and during the war, one must remember, the schools were closed down and the children did not benefit from a formal education and it was up to abigail to teach them the lessons, not only arithmetic and french but also morality, literature and what was going on in the revolutionary war. She was their primary educator here in this home and this is the room where many of those lessons would have taken place. She reported to john adams during the revolution at one point, she began to take up the works of ancient history and having john quincy read her at least two pages a day. I dont know if anyone ever read rollins history, but for a 7yearold boy to accomplish this he had a very good ininstructor in Abigail Adams. In the occupation of boston, there were many refugees leaving from boston out into the country and needed a place to live. Ever the patriot, Abigail Adams wanted to open the home next door, john adams birthplace for these refugees. She rented out the house to a farmer maimed mr. Hayden and his son and would provide assistance to abigail on the farm here. She reported to john in one of the letters that she met with some very ill treatment and asked mr. Hayden to share his house with the refugees but he refused. By the time abigail received a response from john adams, like many things, she had solved the problem herself and reported to john later. She had taken care of the problem and paid mr. Hayden to leave the premises, therefore providing the opportunity for her to house refugees fleeing from boston. There are troops marching in her yard practicing their maneuvers in preparation for war. She reports to john that Young John Quincy is out behind the house marching proudly behind the militia. At one point, there were militia living in the upstairs attic and also the second floor. She welcomed these militia men to her home in support of the revolutionary war with her actions. The adams life and trajectory of it put them in the biggest events of the founding days of our country and we have a time line of some of the key times in the adams life and that we all learned in our history books. You see 1744 when she was born and married john adams 20 years later. Soon after that the stamp act then in 1770, the boston massacre and that will go on, as youre watching that time line, i wanted to ask edie about how endangered the adams family were living in the midst of this preparation for war and being sympathizers against the existing government. For the first decade of their marriage, abigail and