Abigail Adams - Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World - Ann Shen

Bad Girls Throughout History: 100 Remarkable Women Who Changed the World - Ann Shen (2016)

Abigail Adams

The second First Lady of the United States, Abigail Adams (1744-1818) was a true equal to her husband, John Adams. Denied a formal education because of her sickly childhood, Adams was educated by her mother and became well-versed in poetry, politics, and philosophy—unusual for a woman at the time. She was the first First Lady to reside in the President’s House in Washington, D.C. (before the White House was built), and there she held down the fort, raising six children and sheltering wounded soldiers from the Revolutionary War. Legend has it that she melted down her silverware to make bullets for the troops. John and Abigail were true loves and partners; she read all of his speeches and formal documents before he delivered them. Since he often traveled for work, they wrote more than a thousand letters to each other during the lifetime of their relationship. All of these letters demonstrated the ideals that Abigail impressed upon John—she was a devout feminist before the word even existed, strongly urging John to always “remember the ladies” in the development of the new country. Additionally, she was strongly against slavery, believing it would threaten the very core of the democracy that was being established. She was so politically active that people often referred to her as “Mrs. President.”

Mrs. President