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Abigail Adams And The White House Analysis

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First Lady Abigail Adams criticized whatever she could about both the city and the house when she first arrived at the White House. She focused on what was wrong with everything, all of the little inconveniences of living in an unfinished building, and reacted negatively to almost everything that she saw. The longer she stayed, she was able to envision what the house and its rooms would look like when they were completed, and how the problems she was having would be fixed in the future. She started to see the place in a better light and even started describing it as beautiful. When she first arrived, she was disappointed by how small and spread out the city was. She wrote, "... but woods are all you can see from Baltimore until you reach the city, which is only so in name. Here and there is a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed amongst the forests, through which you travel miles without seeing and human being. In the city there are buildings enough, if they were compact and finished, to accommodate Congress and those attached to it; but as they are, and scattered as they are, I see no great comfort for them." She did not think that this …show more content…

She wrote, "... bells are wholly wanting, not one single one being hung through the whole house, and promises are all you can obtain. This is so great an inconvenience that I know not what to do, or how to do." She also wrote, "...can you believe that wood is not to be had because people cannot be found to cut and cart it?... yesterday the man told him it was impossible for him to procure it to be cut and carted. He has had to recourse to coals; but we cannot get the grates made and set." Most of her letter she was writing about things she didn't like about the new place, causing her to try and find fault with almost everything she

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