Best abigail adams biography book
About This Book
A Wall Street Journal Spring Books 2024 Selection: “What to Read This Spring”
An Extraordinary Portrait of America’s Beloved Female Founder and First Lady
Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, was an eyewitness to America’s founding, and helped guide the new nation through her observations and advice to her famously prickly husband, who cherished her. She met many important and significant figures of the period: George Washington and his wife Martha, Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Knox, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, John Jay, Marquis de Lafayette, John Paul Jones, Alexander Hamilton, James Monroe, artist Patience Wright, and even King George III and Queen Charlotte of England, as well as King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France. In The Unexpected Abigail Adams: A Woman “Not Apt to Be Intimidated”, writer and researcher John L. Smith, Jr., draws on more than two thousand letters of Abigail’s spanning from the 1760s to her death in 1818, interweaving Abigail’s colorful correspondence—some of which has not appeared in print before—with a contextual narrative. In this priceless documentation of one of the most important periods of world history she comments on the varied personalities she encountered and, while her husband was away from home serving in the Continental Congresses and as a diplomatic envoy in Europe, she wrote him frequently about their home in Massachusetts, their family, national and local politics, and, during the early years of the war, crucial information concerning revolutionary activities around Boston. She was an advocate for education for women, a shrewd businesswoman, and had an unrivaled political acumen. Her strength in the face of disease, loss of children, and other hardships, and her poignant, beautiful, and often philosophical commentary, advice, and predictions allow Abigail to demonstrate her fully modern sensibilities. This major biography of Abigail, the first in over ten y Regular price $21.00 In this new, vivid, nuanced portrait, now in paperback, prize-winning historian Woody Holton uses original sources and letters for the first time in a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams's life story and of women's roles in the creation of the republic.In this vivid new biography of Abigail Adams, the most illustrious woman of the founding era, Bancroft Award-winning historian Woody Holton offers a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams's life story and of women's roles in the creation of the republic. Using previously overlooked documents from numerous archives, Abigail Adams shows that the wife of the second president of the United States was far more charismatic and influential than historians have realized. One of the finest writers of her age, Adams passionately campaigned for women's education, denounced sex discrimination, and matched wits not only with her brilliant husband, John, but with Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. When male Patriots ignored her famous appeal to "Remember the Ladies," she accomplished her own personal declaration of independence: Defying centuries of legislation that assigned married women's property to their husbands, she amassed a fortune in her own name. Adams's life story encapsulates the history of the founding era, for she defined herself in relation to the people she loved or hated (she was never neutral), a cast of characters that included her mother and sisters; Benjamin Franklin and James Lovell, her husband's bawdy congressional colleagues; Phoebe Abdee, her father's former slave; her financially naïve husband; and her son John Quincy. At once epic and intimate, Abigail Adams, sheds light on a complicated, fascinating woman, one of the most beloved figures of American history. " . . . best-of-all-biographies of Abigail Adams . . . " —American Historical Review "Portia, a new study of Abigail Adams—modern feminism's favorite Founding Mother—is a refreshing change of pace." —San Francisco Chronicle " . . . very well done, highly perceptive, and full of fresh ideas." —Wilson Library Bulletin " . . . Adams's strength, courage, and wit (as well as her bouts of depression and gender conservatism) emerge more fully than they have in any previous work. . . . a well-rounded portrait of a remarkable figure." —Choice "In this important and fascinating biography, Edith Gelles not only restores Abigail Adams to her rightful place at the center of her own story, she challenges the creaky conventions of 'traditional' male-defined biography." —Susan Faludi, author of Backlash Portia, the first woman-centered biography of Abigail Adams, details the issues, events, and relationships of Adams's life. It is as much a social and cultural history of Adams's time as it is her life story.Abigail Adams
Here’s what I learned about Abigail Adams: She was a feminist, supported emancipation, preferred to sleep with the shutters closed, an entrepreneur, a speculator, and a control freak.
Holton’s biography of Abigail Adams was my second biography on her. The first one I read, Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution, was more of quick portrayal and really didn’t get into the details that Holton does. Holton explains a lot more of Abigail’s doings while John Adams is away. For example, all her dealings – selling merchandise, her investment in bonds, buying land, the money that she claimed as her own – was NEVER mentioned in the other book. Abigail is directly responsible for their good fortunes.
This book appears to have its highs and its lows. There were times where I felt the text was well written and easily flowed. There were times were I felt kind of confused and hung up. I wonder if the author had went back and started adding extra details or something that made the text feel choppier than it should have. After about 300 pages I got BORED. Mostly because the book became more about the Adams family as a whole – Nabby, John Quincy, Charles, Thomas – than it does about Abigail.
Holton becomes obsessed about a few occurrences that reappear in the book again and again. He uses these one-time occurrences to try to disprove a couple things about Abigail Adams.
1- That she is against slavery
2- That she is a feminist
So Adams makes a few comments in regards of seeing the play Othello – Holton analyzes her observations as racist. Instead of going by all Abigail had written her entire life, Holton gives this one note entirely too much credit. And I don’t think he gives it much consideration or interpretation other than face value. Then, because she follows conventions at the time in addressing form slaves and free blacks, apparently this is evidence that she isn’t against slavery. Then she criticizes the cook of
Portia