On First Ladies: Abigail Adams

{The second of my examinations of pivotal first ladies, highlighting trailblazing women in politics, both past and present.}

“Remember the ladies” (Eaton, 1947). The latter quote is one of the most well-known of the late first lady (hereafter abbreviated as FLOTUS) Abigail Adams and is derived from the extensive correspondence she maintained with her husband, the former John Adams from 1744-1818 (Eaton, 1947). This time-period extends to before her service as FLOTUS, during, and after (Eaton, 1947). While the above quote is not in dispute concerning its authenticity, a major debate has increasingly taken place among scholars in history and presidential studies on the extent to which the quote demonstrated that Abigail Adams was a feminist, per the definition used today (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Rossi, 1973; Shingleton, 1998). However, this determination of whether Abigail Adams held feminist views depends both on how one defines a feminist and the socio-historical context Abigail Adams found herself in (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Rossi, 1973; Shingleton, 1998). Therefore, I argue that Abigail Adams was one of the first FLOTUS feminists, or “proto-feminists,” providing a model for future first ladies in her advocacy of women’s education, financial independence, and early reproductive rights during the Revolutionary and post-Revolutionary era where women were largely understood to have domain exclusively in the domestic sphere (Crane, 2013, p. 208).

Before continuing my analysis of Abigail Adams’ time as a form of FLOTUS to John Adams during his service as a congressman in the First and Second Continental Congresses (1774-1781), diplomatic representative to France (1777-1780), Minister to England (1785-1788), Vice President (1789-1797), and President of the United States (1797-1801), I will lay out the parameters of my analysis (Eaton, 1947; NFLL, n.d.). For the purposes of clarity, I would further argue that Abigail Adams’ status during the pre-presidential years of John Adams as what I term “second” or “third” lady provided a similar platform as that of her time as first lady because of her proximity to sources of power present in men close to or occupying the presidency (Crane, 2013; O’Connor et al., 1996; Watson, 2001). Therefore, I will examine how Abigail used her position to advocate for women’s rights in the late 18th and early 19th centuries from her vantage point as third, second, and first lady (O’Connor et al., 1996; Watson, 2001). Additionally, I will put forward a basic definition of feminism upon which to evaluate Abigail Adams, based upon Elaine Forman Crane’s (2013) definition of feminism as “a doctrine based on the belief that women should possess the same economic, political, and social rights as those enjoyed by men” (Crane, p. 200). However, it is helpful to note that the term “feminist” was not coined until the 20th century; nevertheless, she showed feminist-like resistance to her proscribed role as wife, mother, and hostess (Crane, 2013, p. 203). Despite the above caveat, I will judge Abigail Adams by the substance of her extensive correspondence between her and her husband as well as close family friends, such as the feminist Mercy Otis Warren as well as her participation in activities not considered to be “feminine” while John served in powerful positions within government (Crane, 2013; Rossi, 1973). It is both the written word and the extent of her action on her principles that will reveal if she fits the mold of an early feminist FLOTUS as I examine her life’s story.

Abigail Adams was born into a deeply religious family of Congregationalists, which augmented the extent that traditional gender roles became embedded into the expectations that she held about her place as ruler of the domestic sphere upon her marriage to John in 1764 (Crane, 2013; NFLL, n.d.; Shingleton, 1998). While she was somewhat limited in her mobility due to her ill health in both her childhood and adulthood as well as her later domestic responsibilities, Abigail made up for her lack of formal education with her access to her father’s and maternal grandfather’s extensive library (Crane, 2013; NFLL, n.d.). Through her informal schooling, Abigail was exposed to various texts concerning philosophy, theology, Shakespeare, ancient history, government, and law that would form the basis of her later calls for equality in education between males and females to satisfy the natural intellectual curiosity she believed was present in both sexes, among other prominent issue advocacies (Crane, 2013; NFLL, n.d.). Prior to the American Revolution, when John was serving in the Continental Congresses, Abigail began her extensive correspondence, which showed the depth of her interest in politics based upon the relatively frequent commentary she exchanged with John (Eaton, 1947; NFLL, n.d.).

One of the prominent opposing arguments to Abigail’s status as feminist is represented in Edith B. Gelles’s (1979) piece “Abigail Adams and the American Revolution” and Jennifer Shingleton’s (1998) piece “Abigail Adams: The Feminist Myth” (Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). Both pieces put forward similar arguments that Abigail was not a feminist for her acceptance of the unequal gender hierarchies exemplified in marriage, while ignoring the instances that Adams challenged gender hierarchy within the context of gender hierarchy, such as her political activism (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). I further counter those arguments by supporting historian Karen Offen’s distinction between “individual” and “relational” feminism (Shingleton, 1998, p. 2). Prior to 20th century definitions of feminism, the more common form of feminism was relational feminism, which “centered on a ‘gender-based but egalitarian vision of social organization,’ with a ‘non-hierarchical, male-female couple as the basic unit of society’” (Shingleton, 1998, p. 2). I would argue that Abigail’s life, both during and outside her time as FLOTUS resembled that of a relational feminist rather than a modern day individual feminist because of the sociohistorical and sociopolitical constraints placed upon women at the time (Shingleton, 1998, p. 2-3). Essentially, like many other first ladies, Abigail Adams used the salient power given to her via the institution of marriage (especially in the context of the 18th-19th centuries) to try and make a sociopolitical impact (Caroli, 2010; O’Connell, et al., 1996; Watson, 2001).

Additionally, Crane (2013) puts forward the argument that “confined by contemporary gender mores, Abigail employed conventional language to fashion a persona acceptable by eighteenth-century standards” based upon a combination of the wife of a Roman statesman, Brutus, and an “unlesson’d” yet erudite girl of the same name in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (Crane, p. 199, 215). Tellingly, Shakespeare’s Portia “disguised herself as a young male lawyer” and served capably, thus hinting at Abigail’s potential longing for a role in the public sphere like her husband first had as a lawyer (Crane, 2013, p. 215; Eaton, 1947; NFLL, n.d.). In other words, Abigail Adams’ use of the socially-accepted practices such as the art of letter writing and her extensive informal education provided just one dimension of her proto-feminist beliefs in the absence of her immediate ability to act upon her beliefs outside the constraints of traditional gender roles (Caroli, 2010; Crane, 2013; Eaton, 1947). It is in this way that Abigail proves herself to be a relational feminist (but an early feminist nonetheless) in her challenging of the status quo within the constraints of those power structures (Crane, 2013; Shingleton, 1998). This notion of working within established power structures is like Watson’s (2001) argument that first ladies have still been able to wield significant powers by using socially accepted gender roles to gain greater authority (Watson, 2001).

The earliest expression of these beliefs is in her famous March 1776 letter in which she counsels John to “remember the ladies” when forming the basis of the new government of the country to advance the legal equality of women under the law (Crane, 2013, p. 203; NFLL, n.d.). She warns John of a potential women’s “revolution” if such changes are not implemented in the new government where women do not have “…voice or representation” (Crane, 2013, p. 203: Eaton, 1947). This letter was written in the context of Abigail’s agitation for legal protections of women that would prevent men’s legally-proscribed abuse of their power over women represented in the prevailing coverture doctrine inherited from English common law, which stipulated that women could not “buy, sell, nor possess property independent of her husband” or other legal protections in general outside of marriage (Crane, 2013, p. 210). Her letter seems to have rattled John, who in a letter to his friend James Sullivan in late May 1776 worries about enfranchising the non-propertied classes (i.e. women, slaves, young people) by writing that it was “dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy…by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters” and thus open the political process to minority interests who could challenge the legal status quo (Rossi, 1973, p. 15). Other calls for legal representation and equality from Abigail come in letters from 1779 and 1782, respectively, where she writes that while women did not control government, she did not see any reason for women not to have a say in how government is conducted (Crane, 2013, p. 203). In 1782, Abigail continued to voice her complaints about being “deprived of a voice in legislation” and of being “obliged to submit those laws which are imposed on us [women]” by men in the legislative and executive branches of government (Crane, 2013, p. 207). Because she was a close confidante to her husband throughout his political career, Abigail leveraged this role often to advocate for legal and political changes to benefit women (Crane, 2013; Eaton, 1947).

Outside of the written word, Abigail demonstrated her vision of an egalitarian marriage where women could be financially and legally self-sufficient whereby she assumed primary responsibility for the management of the family farm in Braintree, Massachusetts while John was away first as a delegate to the Continental Congress and later in his diplomatic posts to England and France (Crane, 2013, p. 209; NFLL, n.d.). Moreover, to supplement the family income, Abigail proved a capable financial manager largely without the advice of John in her land speculation and import business ventures while facing the financial difficulties of labor shortages and inflation (Crane, 2013, p. 209-212; Gelles, 1979, p. 501). Her growing independence was reflected in her use of “my” instead of “ours” (hers and her husband’s) when talking about the income made from those enterprises in her letters to John at the end of the Revolution (Crane, 2013, p. 210). While Gelles (1979) and Shingleton (1998) make the argument that many women were forced to take on breadwinning functions in the absence of husbands and male relatives who were fighting in the American Revolution, Abigail’s aforementioned gaining of self-confidence in her semi-autonomous business role as well as the bequeathing of most of her wealth and property to her female relatives outside of what she also gave to her sons Quincy and Thomas in her 1816 will (Crane, 2013, p. 211; Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). In fact, Abigail pointedly excluded her male relatives and servants in this document (Crane, 2013, p. 211). Lastly, a little-known appointment in 1775 to the Massachusetts Colony General Court to participate in questioning ladies seen as impeding the Revolution brought Abigail further outside the domestic sphere in the political as well as economic spheres (NFLL, n.d.). John seems to acknowledge her growing influence as the first FLOTUS to hold a “quasi-official governmental position” by writing that she was “a politician…elected into an important office, that of judges of Tory ladies” (NFLL, n.d.).

Moving into her time as FLOTUS (first lady versus “second” or “third” lady) and after, Abigail seems to assert herself even more, especially through the written word and (paradoxically) the assumption of traditional hostessing duties (Caroli, 2010; Crane, 2013; Eaton, 1947). Shields and Teute (2015) note the extent to which Abigail Adams used her hostess role as FLOTUS and participation in courtly rituals of the early American republic to become “a broker of patronage…a conduit of information to newspapers, a counselor to the president, and a figure whose known influence on the president caused her to be the target of petition and persuasion” (Caroli, 2010; Shields & Teute, 2015, p. 228). Her monitoring of the press, speech-writing, and other functions as FLOTUS confidante to her husband enabled her to serve as the intermediary between her husband and the people outside of the political discussions contained in their private correspondence (Caroli, 2010; Eaton, 1947; Shields & Teute, 2015).

Thus, she extended “women’s purview beyond the realm of manners and liaisons to public opinion,” further asserting roles that served to simultaneously go beyond traditional gender roles while working within those structures (Caroli, 2010; Crane, 2013; Shields & Teute, 2015, p. 235). In addition to her assuming more confident political roles within the “culture of sensibility” as FLOTUS, Abigail advocated for equal education of the sexes in subjects that would “improve the mind” such as learning Latin and Greek (Crane, 2013, p. 201; Gelles, 1979; NFLL, n.d.; Shingleton, 1998; Shields & Teute, 2015). Despite assertions by scholars like Gelles (1979) that Abigail could successfully promote this initiative because it would improve the quality of women’s domestic functions surrounding motherhood and household management (a non-controversial stance at the time), Abigail nonetheless asserted the equality in intellectual capabilities between the sexes (Gelles, 1979; Crane, 2013, p. 201; Shingleton, 1998). She writes in 1771 to a family friend Isaac Smith Jr. that while women were largely thought of in terms of being “domestick beings,” that women “inherit an Eaquel Share of curiosity with the other Sex” and that she also wanted to have equal opportunities to be a “rover” and see the world outside the domestic sphere (Rossi, 1973, p. 9).

Outside of her education advocacy, another little-known fact about Abigail was her concerns of family planning before, during, and after her tenure as FLOTUS that seem to further rebuke scholars who hold that Abigail did not resist the gender roles proscribed to her by the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Crane, 2013, p. 212). Abigail advised her close female relatives to limit childbearing, considering too many children a “form of slavery” as well as seemingly working with John to not conceive children between 1772 and 1777 (the gap between the birth of her son John and her daughter Elizabeth in 1777, respectively) (Crane, 2013, p. 212). This gap persisted despite John being home frequently from 1771-1774 and seems to imply an agreement between Abigail and John to limit the family size to four children (Crane, 2013, p. 212). It would seem that despite her socially conservative upbringing, Abigail held very progressive views for her time (Crane, 2013).

In conclusion, Abigail Adams can be considered a FLOTUS proto-feminist because of her championing of equal education, women’s economic self-sufficiency and other legal protections, and family planning in both her letters and her actions in a decidedly socially conservative era (Crane, 2013; Gelles, 1979; Shingleton, 1998). While Abigail used her position in relation to her proximity to men of power, like her husband John Adams, largely within the confines of the proscribed gender roles, this should not discount Abigail’s contributions to the development (and acting out) of feminist principles (Crane, 2013; Gelles 1979; Shingleton, 1998). By asserting herself more prominently inside the domestic sphere and making forays into the public sphere before, during, and after her time as FLOTUS via assumption (and reworking) of traditional gender roles (confidante to a husband, letter writing, provision of political advice, and other supportive political tasks), Abigail also proved through her own brand of relational feminism that she could be both an assertive public figure as well as a domestic one (Caroli, 2010; Gelles, 1979; O’Connor et al., 1996; Shingleton, 1998; Watson, 2001). This paved the way for future first ladies to exert political influence in very similar ways, despite the societal constraints of the times (Caroli, 2010; O’Connor et al., 1996; Watson, 2001).
  
Works Cited:

Caroli, B. (2010). First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Crane, E. (2013). Abigail Adams and Feminism. In D. Waldstreicher (Ed.), A Companion to John Adams and John Quincy Adams (pp. 199-217). Oxford, England: Wiley-Blackwell.

Eaton, D. (1947). Some Letters of Abigail Adams. Quarterly Journal of Current Acquisitions, 4(4), pp. 3-6.

Gelles, E. (1979). Abigail Adams: Domesticity and the American Revolution. The New England Quarterly, 52(4), pp. 500-521.

National First Ladies' Library. (n.d.). First Lady Biography: Abigail Adams. Retrieved March 01, 2017, from http://www.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=2.

O'Connor, K., Nye, B., & Assendelft, L.V. (1996). Wives in the White House: The Political Influence of First Ladies. (Reassessments of Presidents and First Ladies). Presidential Studies Quarterly, 26(3), pp. 835-853.

Rossi, A. (1973). “Remember the Ladies”: Abigail Adams vs. John Adams. In A. Rossi (Ed.), The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir (pp. 7-15). New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Shields, D., & Teute, F. (2015). The Court of Abigail Adams. Journal of the Early Republic, 35(2), pp. 227-235.

Shingleton, J. (1998). Abigail Adams: The Feminist Myth (Paper, Princeton University, 1998). The Concord Review, pp. 1-26. Retrieved March 5, 2017, from http://modelsofexcellence.eleducation.org/writings/abigail-adams-feminist-myth.

Watson, R. (2001). The "White Glove Pulpit": A History of Policy Influence by First Ladies. OAH Magazine of History, 15(3), pp. 9-14.