Biography: First Lady Louisa Adams (1775-1852)

First Lady Louisa Adams was born Louisa Catherine Johnson on February 12, 1775 in London, England. She is America's only First Lady not born in the United States. Her mother, Catherine Nuth Johnson, was an Englishwoman, but her father, Joshua Johnson, was an American consul and merchant from Maryland. They married when Louisa was about ten years old.

Louisa was educated in France and became proficient in French, even to the point that she forgot how to speak English. Afterward, she identified as more French than either English or American.

In 1794, Louisa met John Quincy Adams, the son of future President John Adams, in London. Although John's mother, Abigail Adams, warned him that marrying a British woman could hurt his political career, the couple were married on July 26, 1797. They had four children, George Washington (1801-1829), John (1803-1834), Charles Francis (1807-1886), and Louisa Catherine (1811-1812)

Shortly after the marriage, President John Adams assigned John Quincy Adams as the United States minister to Prussia. John and Louisa moved to Berlin, where Louisa's experience with the French language and identification with European culture earned her a friendship with the Prussian royal family. She felt isolated, however, by a lack of money to entertain as well as other diplomats, her husband's dismissive and sexist attitudes towards women, and chronic illness, including several miscarriages.

When John Adams lost his bid for reelection in 1802, he recalled his son back to the United States. John Quincy Adams practiced law and was elected to the Senate in 1803. Both he and Louisa had a strong sense of bi-partisanship, and the anger he received for occasionally supporting Jefferson and Madison led him to resign in 1808.When President Thomas Jefferson assigned John Quincy Adams as United States Minister to Russia, he accepted without asking Louisa. She was forced by her husband and mother-in-law to leave their oldest two children with John and Abigail Adams for eight years. When they died young, one from possible suicide and one as a result of alcoholism, she blamed herself.

Although, as in Berlin, Louisa soon became a friend of the Russian royal family, the stay was not pleasant. Left alone in St. Petersburg, she had to make a forty-day-long journey through war-torn Europe to meet her husband. Thankfully, her education saved her; she avoided certain death at the hand of Napoleonic troops by claiming, in perfect French, to be Napoleon's sister.

After the family's return to the United States, Louisa Adams helped her husband make political connections and campaign for President in 1824. John's presidency was a troubling time for her, however, due to the underhanded deal he made to gain votes over Andrew Jackson, the early deaths of her older sons, and various illnesses. Once again she felt isolated from social events.

Nevertheless, she became a passionate supporter of women's rights, both during her husband's presidency and his subsequent role in Congress, connecting the plight of African-American slaves with the oppression of American women and becoming a passionate supporter of her husband's abolitionist beliefs. She wrote several unpublished autobiographical manuscripts, "Adventures of a Nobody," "Record of a Life, or My Story," and "Narrative of a Journey from Russia to France, 1815."

John Quincy Adams died of a stroke on the floor of Congress in 1848. Louisa continued to defend his political accomplishments and reputation. She too suffered a stroke in 1849, and passed away in Washington, D.C. in 1852.

Sources

• Biography of Louisa Adams from The White House
• Louisa Adams from About.com
• Louisa Adams Biography from National First Ladies' Library