Abigail Adams : A Feminist Without Abandoning Gender Expectations

At the age of nineteen, she got married to John Adams, a lawyer in Massachusetts. They were married in 1764 by Abigail’s father and moved into a house next to John’s childhood home. Together John and Abigail had six children, only four of them lived into adulthood; one of the boys became “the sixth president, John Quincy Adams”(McMichael, 1). Abigail’s main job was taking care of the children while John was working and away on business. After pregnancy, Abigail became sick, and “had a ‘shaking fit,’ (…) the type of convulsion that a doctor

However, the revolution didn’t encourage both sexes to reevaluate the women’s right. It very little changed happen women still had the same basic rights like before. However, Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, became an early supporter of women's rights when she prompted her husband to "REMEMBER THE LADIES" when starting up a new government. Even though Adams passed a new law that protects some women from bad husband this new law did not protect the single women. Also, women need and wanted to have the same right as men. Women have the same capacity and the same intellectual as men, there is no difference. The only difference between women and men that men have access to education and have more power than women before the American Revolution, this changed after women started to realize that they could have the same rights as men. Furthermore, American women deserve to have the same right. If the republic were to succeed, women must be educated in quality so they could teach their children how

The American Revolution was the initial push for women wanting rights. In a letter to Mary Otis Warren, Abigail Adams discloses that she asked her husband to include women and to not put all the power into the hands of men(Doc B). The American Revolution also greatly changed the lives of women. If the republic were to succeed, women must be educated so they could teach their children moral and virtue. Although their status in society stayed private and almost the same, women had a larger role in day to day life because of the Republican Motherhood. Women were honored to take on these news domestic roles(Doc C). Because of the increase in women’s education, women were able to contribute to other important movements such as the

As a result, she lacked confidence in her education. She stated, “My early education did not partake of the abundant opportunities which the present day affords and which even our common schools now afford. I was never sent to any school; I was always sick.” Even though she did not attend a formal school it did not put her out of reach of a proper education (Peterson, 9).

Women’s rights and equalities have always been an issue. Women first began their fight for equality in 1776, when the Congress was working on the Declaration of Independence. During the late 1840s, women set up the first women’s rights convention, which was the starting point of the women’s rights movement. In 1861, men were getting called off to war, leaving their wives and kids at home to wait patiently and care for the house and children. Women did not take too well to that idea, and they began to take action. Women have always fought for their right to stand alongside men. The three major events for the fight to gain rights and equality for women were the “Remembering the Ladies” declaration, the Civil War, and the Women’s Rights Movement.

Women were considered by the majority of the population to be rightfully subservient to men because of both tradition and religious practices. While women were undoubtedly called upon to take care of the home front while their men were called away to war, and in some cased supported the war directly, they were not given any political rights worth noting. They could not vote, could not hold political office, and could not legally join the military. Abigail Adams, advocated for the political rights of women in her letters to her husband John with little effect. While John Adams did address this issue in a letter to James Sullivan, he did not support this as a right. It seemed that there was little political will for women to be treated the equal with men, even slave men. (Brown & Carp,

Abigail Adams was a wise and educated woman that had one wonderful but challenging life. Like any other women in the 1700s, she grew up to become someone’s wife, bear children and live in the private life of her husband’s house. Abigail has a slightly different story than other women though. She grew up with her sisters and brother and had a tutor so they became literate, which was not a thing for women. Educated men didn’t want a wife that was smart, they wanted someone to take care of them and the children and just about nothing else. In the following paragraphs we will talk about who the author is, a back story of who Abigail is, and the thesis of the book as a whole.

Abigail Adams had even warned her husband that if women did not receive equal rights within the constitution, the founding fathers would have to fear rebellion. This seemed to hold true over a hundred years later when the women’s suffrage movement increased rapidly and showed the nation that women deserved the right to vote through protests and marches. Despite these strong similarities, there are also a few differences that separate their writings. For example, both women wrote in different styles. While Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in a logical appeal, Abigail Adams appealed to her husband with emotion. Unfortunately, Abigail Adams did not leave a large impression on the women’s rights movement. Although letters like hers were what eventually inspired a young E. C. Stanton. Although Adams did not succeed in bringing women’s rights, Stanton left a lasting impression that won’t be forgotten.

Through all the readings that she had possessed she had become, what was the start of, an independent woman. The fact that she continued to read to further her knowledge and to learn more did not faze her that not many other women were doing as she was. At a young age she knew that “settling” with the roles of women during this time was a life that she had to choose but she also wanted more. She wanted to educate herself and that she did through the works of her favorite author’s books and poems.

However, there was no doubt that women attempted to change their role. For instance, they created groups such as the Daughters of Liberty and the Ladies Association. The Daughters of Liberty was named as the female version of the Sons of Liberty, who were known for throwing chests of British East India Company tea in the Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party (Document A). However, since ladies were not expected to take part in such harsh rebellions, they had their own silent rebellions in which they would boycott the purchase and use of goods manufactured in England by making their own goods, such as sewing clothes. Some women even tried to persuade men to change these roles. For example, Abigail Adams, the wife of politician John Adams, wrote a letter to her husband that included keeping women in mind when drafting the Constitution of the United States. Abigail pleaded her husband to "Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors" (Document D). However, even if John Adams had proposed the idea of giving the women more rights than they previously had, nothing changed and the American Revolutionary

Led by a fair number of women, the Second Great Awakening opened new possibilities for women. The idea that women were subordinate to men was slowly becoming a thing of the pass. Women broke the social norm and began to lead reform movements in order to gain rights. The Grimké sisters regularly spoke to coed audiences about abolitionist efforts in order to gain support and spread the idea of abolition (Pastoral Letter to the Liberator, 1837). However, women didn’t fully receive equal legal status and rights until the mid-nineteenth century. The Seneca Falls Convention ultimately paved the way for women’s rights and the Declaration of Sentiments proposed “women’s equality in everything from education and employment to legal rights and voting”(Hewitt, Lawson

Abigail Adams was in an era where women had no voice, and all the power was left in the hands of men and husbands. Women were just wives and mothers, who were only held responsible for motherly and wifely duties. Although women had much more to offer, and Abigail Adams was aware of women’s potential. So, she asked her husband John Adams to “Remember the Ladies” while fighting for Americas independence from Great Britain. She did not want him to give all the power to the men, and leave out the women’s voice and freedom they all desire.

Withey’s book also includes much information about the politics and government of the time, while also painting a portrait of Abigail Adams as an intelligent, resourceful, and outspoken woman, as well as involving details of her domestic life, with excerpts from multiple letters that she and John wrote to each other. The reader is able to read these passages and understand the public and reserved sides of Abigail Adams, who was both a believer in the emancipation of slavery and an early feminist, and had advised her husband of keeping women in mind while he

At the beginning of the struggle in America, women’s citizenship was not given serious consideration. Women were invisible in the political sphere and were seen to have no capacity where politics were concerned. When the war occurred, the role of women vastly changed. They were leaders off the battlefield. Women began to question their role in the political arena. Could a woman have a political thought? Could women be patriots? Must a wife’s political loyalty be the same as her husband’s? Once the Revolution succeeded, these questions were pushed away. Women had played the role of “Republican Mother” and completed their duty in helping the war effort, they did not need a more significant political role. Although women realized they had the potential to have a political mind, Kerber uses the legal processes of confiscation, coverture, and divorce to explain how women’s political identities were still tied to the role of wife. The American Revolution was a fight for liberty and freedom, unless you were a woman. As long as those three processes remained intact women would not gain freedom.

Abigail Adams faced many hardships throughout her life. She was the daughter of a minister and had two sisters and a brother. In the 1700’s, children did not have a high survival rate due to the amount of diseases and nothing to treat them with. Abigail Adams said in her old age that she “was always sick” (Akers 5). This reminds people how tough life was in the 1700’s and how easy it was to pass away from a mere cold. Abigail also did not have any education growing up. Women, in the colonial era, were not supposed to have an education and were supposed to watch the kids, cook, and clean. Readers of this book learn that many women back then were illiterate and were self-taught, if they had any education. Abigail did find a love for literature due to her sister’s spouse, Richard Cranch. He influenced her love for literature at a young age and she started to become more literate. Along with the disease and educational deficiency, women were considered as property. A young woman could either give up