Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Abigail Adams
-
Standard Name: Adams, Abigail
Birth Name: Abigail Smith
Married Name: Abigail Adams
AA
holds a secure place in history as a founding mother of the USA: wife of one President, mother of another. As a writer, too, her involvement from the margins in shaping the young republic gives an extra value to her letters—which, like those of many other eighteenth-century women, combine fluent and vivid prose with opinions eminently worth listening to. Her husband's career also made her a travel writer with an unrivalled vantage point for reporting on the cultural practices of France and of England.
Akers, Charles W. Abigail Adams: An American Woman. Little, Brown, 1980.
SWM
's The Virtues of Society. A Tale, Founded on Fact (originally intended to make part of Beacon Hill), was published in Boston, dedicated to Abigail Adams
, as by the Author of...
Family and Intimate relationships
Henry Brooks Adams
HBA
was a great-grandson of the historic letter-writer Abigail Adams
.
Friends, Associates
Sarah Wentworth Morton
She kept up throughout her lifetime her friendship with Abigail Adams
, made her successive Dorchester homes a centre for younger writers and intellectuals including Robert Treat Payne, Jr
, and wrote a verse thank-you...
Friends, Associates
Judith Sargent Murray
JSM
visited Abigail Adams
soon after her second marriage.
Field, Vena Bernadette. Constantia: A Study of the Life and Works of Judith Sargent Murray, 1751-1820. University of Maine Press, 1931.
26
Friends, Associates
Mercy Otis Warren
Though MOW
's strongest friendships were probably with men (John Adams
, Thomas Jefferson
, and others), some friendships with women were very important to her, notably that with Abigail Adams
. In her...
Friends, Associates
Catharine Macaulay
With her husband CM
lived a busy social life. She met Frances Sheridan
after she had become a writer.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press, 1992.
She later corresponded with Washington, as well as with Abigail Adams
and Mercy Otis Warren
.
Hill, Bridget. The Republican Virago: The Life and Times of Catharine Macaulay, Historian. Clarendon Press, 1992.
126-8
politics
Mercy Otis Warren
MOW
was a strong US nationalist before the War of Independence. Later she became, like her husband, an anti-Federalist: one of those who were not happy with the Constitution as drafted and sought amendments to...
Author summary
Judith Sargent Murray
JSM
, writing around and after the American War of Independence, produced poetry, plays, periodical essays, and a sentimental novel published in instalments. A recent biographer puts her closer to the centre of debate about...
Textual Features
Susanna Wright
It argues (before such arguments had been put forward in America by Abigail Adams
, Judith Sargent Murray
, or Mercy Otis Warren
, but drawing on beliefs current among Quakers
since their mid-seventeenth-century origins)...
Textual Production
Mercy Otis Warren
Like so many of her contemporaries, MOW
was an energetic and compelling letter-writer. She corresponded with an unidentified Dr Betsey on the topic of women's education. Her many letters to Abigail Adams
include one of...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Sarah Josepha Hale
In turning the spotlight on American women she is not unmindful of their place in national life. Abigail Adams
gets more than ten columns, a portrait, and generous quotation from her letters. She is a...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Adams, Abigail, and John, 1735 - 1826 Adams. My Dearest Friend Letters of Abigail and John Adams. Editors Hogan, Margaret A. and James C. Taylor, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.