Abigail Adams / by Janet Whitney. EDITION [1st ed.] PUBLISHED Boston : Little, Brown, 1947. DESCRIPT. xii, 357 p. : plates, ports., maps (on lining-papers) ; 23 cm. SUBJECT Adams, Abigail, 1744-1818. NOTE An Atlantic Monthly Press book. Bibliography: p. [343]-348. CL Book Stacks 973.30924 A199zw

Abigail Adams : a biography / Phyllis Lee Levin. PUBLISHED New York : St. Martin's Press, c1987. DESCRIPT. xv, 575 p., [8] leaves of plates : ill. ; 24 cm. SUBJECT Adams, Abigail, 1744-1818. Adams, John, 1735-1826. Presidents --United States --Wives --Biography. NOTE Includes index. CL Book Stacks 973.440924 A211zl

Abigail Adams, an American woman / Charles W. Akers. PUBLISHED Boston : Little, Brown, c1980. DESCRIPT. x, 207 p., [1] leaf of plates : ill. ; 20 cm. SER. NOTE The library of American biography. SERIES Library of American biography. SUBJECT Adams, Abigail, 1744-1818. Adams, John, 1735-1826. Presidents --United States --Wives --Biography. NOTE Bibliography: p. [193]-200. Includes index. CL Book Stacks 973.440924 A211za

Adams women, The : Abigail and Louisa Adams, their sisters and daughters / Paul C. Nagel. PUBLISHED New York : Oxford University Press, 1987. DESCRIPT. viii, 310 p., [12] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm. SUBJECT Adams, Abigail, 1744-1818. Adams, Louisa Catherine, 1775-1852. Adams, John, 1735-1826 --Family. Adams, John Quincy, 1767-1848 --Family. Adams family. Presidents --United States --Wives --Biography. NOTE Bibliography: p. 297-302. CL Book Stacks 973.40922 A211zn

Book of Abigail and John, The : selected letters of the Adams family, 1762-1784 / edited and with an introd. by L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, and Mary-Jo Kline. PUBLISHED Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1975. DESCRIPT. ix, 411 p., [1] leaf of plates : ill. ; 24 cm. SUBJECT Adams, Abigail, 1744-1818. Adams, John, 1735-1826. NOTE Includes index. ADD. AUTHOR Adams, John, 1735-1826. Butterfield, L. H. (Lyman Henry), 1909Friedlaender, Marc, 1905CL Book Stacks 973.440924 A211b

Cole, Adelaide M. ABIGAIL ADAMS: A VIGNETTE. Daughters of the Am. Revolution Mag. 1979 113(5): 494-499. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Biography of Abigail Adams (1744-1818), wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams.

Dearest friend : a life of Abigail Adams / Lynne Withey. New York : Free Press ; London : Collier Macmillan Publishers, c1981. UCSD SSH E322.1.A38 W56

Letters of Mrs. Adams, the wife of John Adams / With an introductory memoir by her grandson, Charles Francis Adams. 4th ed., rev. and enl. with an appendix containing the letters addressed by John Q. Adams to his son on the study of the Bible. Boston : Wilkins, Carter, and Company, 1848. Series title: Microbook library of American civilization ; LAC 11366. UCSD SSH XX 568 LAC no. 11366 Current Periodical Microform

New letters of Abigail Adams, 1788-1801; ed. with an introd. by Stewart Mitchell. PUBLISHED Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1947. DESCRIPT. xlii, 281 p. illus., ports., geneal. tables. 25 cm. NOTE: Letters written to the author's sister, Mary Cranch, reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, v. 55, p. [95]-232; [299]-444. Includes bibliographies. ADD. AUTHOR Cranch, Mary Smith, 1741-1811. Mitchell, Stewart, 1892CL Book Stacks 973.44 A214n

Patriotism and the female sex : Abigail Adams and the American Revolution / Rosemary Keller. Brooklyn, N.Y. : Carlson Pub., 1994. Series title: Scholarship in women's history ; v. 8. UCSD SSH E322.1.A38 K435 1994

The Articles:

Fellman, Anita Clair. NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN DOMESTICITY. Canadian Journal of History (Canada) 1984 19(3): 398-406. NOTE: 4 notes. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Reviews Lynne Withey's Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams (1981), Mary P. Ryan's The Empire of the Mother: American Writing about Domesticity 1830-1860 (1982), Karen Halttunen's Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class Culture in America, 1830-1870 (1982), Lois W. Banner's American Beauty (1983), and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's <2Good Wives, Images and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (1982). These books state that women's lives in America were influenced both by the role that women were expected to play and by their attempts to break away from the idealization of their roles. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by D. R. Andes )

Gelles, Edith B. A VIRTUOUS AFFAIR: THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN ABIGAIL ADAMS AND JAMES LOVELL. American Quarterly 1987 39(2): 252-269. NOTE: 49 notes. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Examines sexual politics in 18th-century America through an analysis of the correspondence during the years 1777-82 of Abigail Adams, wife of American statesman and president John Adams, and James Lovell, Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress. Their correspondence, with its sexual innuendoes and its frank and occasionally sharp political disagreements, fell outside the conventions of 18th-century letter-writing, which demanded gallantry from men and discretion and modesty from women. Despite the imbalance of power between men and women, the correspondence between Adams and Lovell charted a gradual evolution from sexually stereotyped conversation to a genuine friendship between equals. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by D. Francisco )

Gelles, Edith B. ABIGAIL ADAMS: DOMESTICITY AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. New England Quarterly. 1979 52(4): 500-521. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Describes Abigail Adams's (1744-1818) management of the family farm and finances in Massachusetts. John Adams sent her tea, handkerchiefs, and other items from Europe. She sold or traded these to meet her needs and, during his absences, she invested in land. She fulfilled a man's role but was no feminist. "She believed that women were domestic, that their primary functions were within the home as wife and mother."Based on family correspondence; 89 notes. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by J. C. Bradford )

Gelles, Edith B. GOSSIP: AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CASE. Journal of Social History 1989 22(4): 667-683. NOTE: Based on letters, memoirs, and secondary sources; 62 notes. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Presents the story of the failed courtship between Abigail Adams (the daughter of John and Abigail) and Royall Tyler during the 1780's. The gossip that took place among the Adams's extended family and their friends not only shaped the course of the courtship but also accomplished a great deal of other family business in the process. Letters, memoirs, and histories describe how the role of gossip functioned in the lives of a family, controlling lives by directing alliances, monitoring and protecting family members, and adjusting behavior. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by P. R. Lever )

Gelles, Edith B. THE ABIGAIL INDUSTRY. William and Mary Quarterly 1988 45(4): 656-683. NOTE: Based on Adams's letters and papers, and secondary sources; 109 notes. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Abigail Adams's letters, first published in 1840, reveal a zest for life and opinions on many subjects. Biographers have been attracted to her many sides. The author categorizes the biographical writings according to points of emphasis: the saintly Abigail, the romantic Abigail, the flirtatious Abigail, the feminist Abigail, the Freudian Abigail, and the political Abigail. The author takes issue with the recent negative portrayal of Adams by Paul C. Nagel. The problem biographers face in writing about Abigail Adams is that they see her in the context of a male interpretative model,"instead of looking at her character as separate from that of her husband. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by H. M. Ward )

Illick, Joseph E. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: THE MATERNAL INFLUENCE. Journal of Psychohistory 1976 4(2): 185-195. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: The role of Abigail Adams in forming the character of her son, John Quincy Adams, has been neglected, while the parallels between his career and philosophy and that of his father, John Adams, are noted. An examination of John Quincy Adams' childhood and adolescence shows that his mother, rather than his father, set his emotional tone. Primary sources; 23 notes. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by R. E. Butchart )

Morison, Samuel Eliot. THREE GREAT LADIES HELPED ESTABLISH THE UNITED STATES. Smithsonian 1975 6(7): 96-103. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Presents biographies of Abigail Adams, Mercy Otis Warren, and Martha Washington, focusing on their letters, feminism, and contributions to the American Revolution.

Musto, David F. THE ADAMS FAMILY. Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Pro. 1981 93: 40-58. NOTE: 40 notes. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Explores the mental outlook or "family mind"of the Adams family, which held sway through four generations to the death of Brooks Adams in 1927. Abigail Adams so recognized and identified with her husband's call to duty and sacrifice and so understood the need to prepare the children for careers in national service that she subordinated her personal loneliness and desires. Some members of the family, notably John Quincy and Charles Francis, met the challenge of the myth, lived long fruitful lives, and became successful public servants. For other members, the myth was clearly an unbearable burden. George Washington Adams, the son of John Quincy Adams, unable to separate his own nature from parental expectations, anguished over the prospects of not measuring up to the family myth, committed suicide at the age of 28. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by G. A. Glovins )

Palmer, Beverly Wilson. ABIGAIL ADAMS AND THE APPLE OF EUROPE. New England Hist. and Geneal. Register 1981 135(Apr): 109-120. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Abigail Adams's residence in England and France during 1784-88 is fully documented in her many letters to family and friends. They reveal how the experience changed her thinking about both the old world and the new. She recognized that she had idealized the new nation and that her hopes for a more virtuous government were probably unachievable. 25 notes. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by J/A. E. Huff )

Pickens, Donald. ANTEBELLUM FEMINISM AND THE DOMESTICATION OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Continuity 1984 (8): 63-76. NOTE: 59 notes. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Between 1776 and 1865 American society developed "natural"institutions to check political experiments. "Republican motherhood,"exemplified by Abigail Adams, combined female domesticity and male politics and then used its "understood"parameters to extend equality to women both within and outside the family. Women who joined reform associations in mid century harnessed these ideals, and later applied them to political feminism by appealing to natural rights. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by W. A. Wiegand )

Pulley, Judith. THE BITTERSWEET FRIENDSHIP OF THOMAS JEFFERSON AND ABIGAIL ADAMS. Essex Inst. Hist. Collections 1972 108(3): 193-216. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Discusses the friendship between the two, its breakup (over the political beliefs of Adams' husband), and its renewal in 1811

Ryerson, Richard Alan.THE LIMITS OF A VICARIOUS LIFE: ABIGAIL ADAMS AND HER DAUGHTER. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 1988 100: 1-14. NOTE: Based on Adams family correspondence at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and other sources; 18 notes. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE. ABSTRACT: Abigail Adams successfully carved out a viable public life by cultivating her native intelligence and attaching herself to public men. A minister's daughter emerging from years in a provincial, male-centered, intensely religious household, Abigail developed an interest in politics, the classics, and history. Marriage to John Adams enabled Abigail to escape her rural confines and create a public life. During 1778-84, Abigail developed into her husband's intellectual companion and sacrificed for his political career, often enduring long separations. During this period, Abigail's considerable written correspondence with the educated male leadership in Massachusetts manifests a woman who attained substantial independence and social standing. Abigail clearly intimidated her daughter Nabby, who lacked her mother's thirst for scholarly pursuits. Adroit at handling and counseling her learned male correspondents, Abigail failed on a personal level with her adolescent daughter who was not accomplished on an intellectual level. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by G. A. Glovins )

Sauter-Bailliet, Theresia. "REMEMBER THE LADIES": EMANCIPATION EFFORTS OF AMERICAN WOMEN FROM INDEPENDENCE TO SENECA FALLS. European Contributions to American Studies (Netherlands*) 1988 14: 271-279. NOTE: Presented at the 1986 conference of the European Association for American Studies in Budapest, Hungary. Secondary sources; biblio. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Abigail Adams's contentions for the rights of women were not taken up by her husband and his colleagues in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution; but she remained a feminist force in early America. Her interest in the work of Catherine Macaulay (who in turn influenced Mary Wollstonecraft) helped lay the foundations that led to the 1848 Seneca Falls conference, regarded as a watershed in the female suffrage and women's rights movements. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by D. I. Petts )

Stoeckel, Althea L ; Kratzer, Joan L. TWO WOMEN OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION: MERCY OTIS WARREN AND ABIGAIL SMITH ADAMS. Indiana Social Studies Quarterly 1974 27(3): 57-70. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Illuminates the problems and interests of women during the American Revolution through the letters of Mercy Otis Warren and Abigail Adams.

Weales, Gerald. THE QUALITY OF MERCY, OR MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION. Georgia Review 1979 33(4): 881-894. DOCUMENT TYPE: ARTICLE ABSTRACT: Mercy Otis Warren (1728-1814) was an early American writer of distinction and an advocate of equal recognition for women. The sister of James Otis and wife of James Warren, she absorbed the Revolutionary spirit of 18th-century Massachusetts, turning out popular satirical plays, of which The Adulateur (1773) and The Group (1775) are the most notable. Warren also wrote verse tragedies and poetry in the elaborate, highly formal style of the day, and maintained a voluminous correspondence with friends such as John and Abigail Adams. (abstract from AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE by J. N. McArthur )