Book Review: Abigail Adams by Woody Holton

Having studied thousands of letters and many archived documents, Woody Holton delivers an elegant account of American history from 1744 to 1818 and the life of a fascinating and historically overlooked first lady. In Abigail Adams, he paints a coquettish yet spunky portrait of the young Abigail. A free spirit with a strong mind, she never stopped lamenting over the lack of equanimity between the sexes when it came to education. Well known for advocating women's rights, she implored her husband to "Remember the Ladies" as he was drawing up new laws after the 1776 British evacuation of Boston. She opined that women should be involved in politics and allowed to hold public office. And in spite of the laws of coverture which made women the legal property of their husbands, she expressed the need for "a legal check on husbands who used their wives with cruel and indignity" referring to women who were abused by their husbands which did not include herself.

Abigail and John Adams enjoyed a romantic courtship and loving marriage. Although he considered her "unladylike" upon meeting her, he eventually found her wit "saucy", appreciating the challenge of her forward manner and intelligence. They were - and remained - a perfectly matched couple, her one complaint being the long separations they endured due to John's professional responsibilities. Many of their letters to each other have survived in which John called her "Diana" after the moon goddess. In turn, she referred to him as her "Lysander", the Spartan general who defeated the Athenians in 405 B.C. He began his letters "Miss Adorable" and she addressed him as "My Friend".

Holton draws a detailed political picture that includes the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the birth of the Declaration of Independence. He also traces Abigail's self-insertion into politics, revealing how her beliefs were sometimes at odds with those of her husband and son John Quincy. She held little but contempt for Benjamin Franklin, who once tried to sabotage her husband, and felt nearly the same about Thomas Jefferson until a late-life reconciliation.

Throughout her life, Adams's children and extended family were a priority. She never stopped asserting her maternal influence as far as it would reach, including across the ocean when necessary, and was usually the one called upon by relatives in need. Holton writes of family achievements, celebrations, disagreements and disappointments. Amid the wealth and pleasures enjoyed by the Adams family were great failures and pain. Pregnancy, epidemic, tuberculosis and cancer were not, of course, exclusive to the time but unique in the ways they were managed, and Abigail Adams remained a matriarchal pillar of strength during difficult times.

She also had a knack for reading the securities market and fomenting profit. Not only did she talk her husband into investing in depreciated government securities in spite of his preference to invest in land, but she quietly invested her own "pin money" in securities just before their value increased. Added to the money she made selling imported goods during the war, her "money which I call mine" amounted to a sizable fortune by the time of her death. Perhaps in defiance of laws that precluded married women from accumulating their own wealth and owning property, she bequeathed her fortune to her female descendants with but two exceptions. Her sons John Quincy and Thomas (to whom she had previously given some land) each received "a tankard and a share in the Weymouth toll bridge." Unnoticed by previous biographers, Adams's disproportionate bequests favoring the women in her family were bold and unusual for the time. Yet, it was her own financial wizardry that kept her husband rich and out of debt throughout his life, proving that women were capable of maintaining control over their economic situations - and deserved the right to do so. Her contributions to family, country and the advancement of women have been somewhat under appreciated. With his extraordinary new biography, Abigail Adams, Woody Holton finally gives her a proper place in American history. Highly recommended.

Abigail Adams by Woody Holton
Free Press, November 3, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4165-4680
512 pp