Broad History

Vote for Broad History in the British Podcast Awards!

Abigail Adams made a killing in war bonds (and possibly a bit of insider trading). She used John Adams' diplomatic posting to import luxury goods from France and resell them at an insane markup. She's the reason her civil servant husband, unlike many of the founding fathers, did not die in massive debt. But as a married woman, she could not own anything in her own name or keep the proceeds of her clever investments. Her famous "Remember the ladies" was not, her biographer Woody Holton argues, a call for women's right to vote. Rather it was a plea to free women from the tyranny of bad husbands and from having their fate decided by the lottery of marriage. Meet Abigail Adams, loving partner, flawed mother, financial capitalist and women's advocate.

★ Support this podcast ★
Get the book
🇺🇸 "Abigail Adams: A Life" and "Liberty is Sweet" by Woody Holton
🇬🇧 "Liberty is Sweet" by Woody Holton. "Abigail Adams: A Life" is unavailable in the UK, but you can browse for other books on Women in the American Revolution.
(Affiliate bookshop.org links support Broad History and indie bookstores.)

Browse the Adams family archives

What do you think?
Jump to: 

Creators and Guests

Host
Isabelle Roughol
Journalist & public historian
Guest
Woody Holton
Peter and Bonnie McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina

What is Broad History?

The history you think you know, with women in it this time

AUDIO S2Ep2 Woody Holton
===

[00:00:00]

British Podcast Awards
---

Isabelle Roughol: Hey, it's Isabelle. Wouldn't it be insane if this tiny show I produce all by myself in my bedroom won Listener's Choice at the British Podcast Awards? Any podcast is eligible. They just need our listeners to mobilise and vote. And you've been such an incredible audience, I think we can do this. Go to britishpodcastawards.com/voting right now, I'll put the link in the show notes, and type in Broad History. There's only a few days to do this, so don't delay please. You'll make my day. Britishpodcastawards.com/voting.

Intro
---

Isabelle Roughol: Hello and welcome to Broad History, a podcast about the history you think you know with women in this time. I'm your host, Isabelle Roughol. The American Revolution, perhaps more than any other era in history, is known to us as a pantheon of great men that we've put up on literal pedestals.

So if we want to recover the other half of history and [00:01:00] understand American independence from the perspective of women who lived it, we should be able to rattle off their names-- Eliza Schuyler, Phyllis Wheatley Peters, Mercy Otis Warren, Deborah Sampson, Elizabeth Freeman, Molly Brant...-- as easily as we rattle off Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Franklin.

So for the next few episodes, we're gonna look at a few individual women and see what their lives can teach us about the early days of the United States. Today we start with perhaps the most famous of them all, Abigail Adams, and to talk about her, our guest is historian Woody Holton from the University of South Carolina, who wrote her biography back in 2009.

Abigail was born Abigail Smith in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1744. Her father was a liberal congregational minister who emphasised reason and morality, but also kept people in bondage.

Her mother was descended from the great [00:02:00] Quincy political dynasty. Abigail was smart and erudite. Despite not having much formal schooling. She lived in a world of ideas and letters and friendships, and left a large correspondence, which allows us to know her better than most women of her time.

Abigail met John Adams, then just a country lawyer when she was 15 and they had a patient courtship until they married five years later.

She was the first Second Lady of the United States from 1789 and the second First Lady from 1797, though those titles weren't used back then. She was both wife and mother to two presidents, though she never got to see her son in the White House. She was also quite the capitalist with a shrewd mind for making money. That's where Woody Holton picks it up.

Woody Holton's path to Abigail Adams
---

Isabelle Roughol: 'Woody Holton, hello and welcome to Broad History

Woody Holton: ~Hi. Hi, thanks for the invitation~

Isabelle Roughol: ~My pleasure. First, I should say, um, happy semi-quincentennial. We're speaking on the 2nd of July. This will, this will come out a little bit later. And when we were scheduling this, you were telling me that this is the actual date of the Declaration of Independence, not the 4th, is it?~

Woody Holton: ~That's right. We're recording on July 2nd, which is the actual day that Congress declared independence. They issued the press release justifying what they had done on July 2nd they issued the press release two days later, July 4th, and that press release was the Declaration of Independence. So yeah, we're talking, But of course we're talking on July 2nd, but this whole year of 1776, and really I'd say the next seven years, we're commemorating the war.~

~So, uh, so we're not late. But by the way, you said s- I've heard various versions of semi-deca this and that. Um, a lot of people simplify it to 250th. I, I don't think it's too hard to say sestercentennial. And for all of us who are interested in women's history, not all of whom are women, of course, that makes it a sister centennial.~

~So, uh, so that's the one I've been pushing. But the best version I've heard was from a guy who said, "No, we're celebrating our first quarter millennium." So, um, so if you're, if you're as happy, um, you know, I'm not real happy with the country, the situation of the country right now, but compared to where we were 150 years ago or 170 years ago when a large population of South Carolina was enslaved by the other half, uh, you know, c- uh, maybe we deserve another quarter millennium, see if we can do even better.~

Isabelle Roughol: ~Sestra centennial, I hadn't heard that. Okay, I'll try and, I'll try and, and switch to sestra centennial. It's funny when you say quarter of a~

Woody Holton: ~'cause it really does rhyme with sister.~

Isabelle Roughol: ~Sestra centennial. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's funny, uh, when you say quarter millennium, it's, uh, it's making me feel very European because my hometown is celebrating its millennium at the moment. ~

Woody Holton: ~Yeah. I never do~

~history in the States because I know someone's gonna make fun of me. "Oh, 100 years old. How impressive." And then there's Roman room-- ruins in the s- in the, in downtown London, as I recall~

Isabelle Roughol: ~Yes. Yes, there is. I remember I, I'm, um... Anyway, I, I was an exchange student in America in, um, in high school, um, and I'm a French woman, and I would tell my classmates that, uh, my f- my apartment was older than their country 'cause I happened to live in an old building. Uh, that's just, That's just Europeans flexing.~

~It's quite rude, I apologize. Um, But anyhow, um,~ You have a~ also a~ [00:03:00] particular distinction of being~ uh,~ the first~ uh,~ man on this podcast, because I have to say it's quite rare to find male historians with an interest in women's history. I'm thrilled~ um, that, ~that it is the case however. ~Uh, ~And I'm curious how you came to Abigail Adams.

Woody Holton: Oh, well, fun question. And I'll start by saying I, I have, I bite my tongue in making fun of my students who've suddenly gotten interested in Alexander Hamilton because of the play,~ um,~ because I realized that I kind of got interested in early America from a play called "1776," and Abigail Adams plays a very prominent role~ uh,~ in that.

~Um, ~So that was sort of in the back of my head. But for this project,~ um, of, of~ as a scholar, I was not interested in her any more than anybody else. I was always interested in women's history 'cause ~it's, it's, ~it's producing the coolest scholarship, and ~we can talk if you want off the air or I could, on the air I could suggest other books like my number one book.~

~I'd love to say it's mine, but my number, like Trump says, my, but my number one, uh, book on early America is called "A Midwife's Tale" by Laurel Ulrich. Have you come across that yet? Um, if not, I highly recommend it. And just, just to summarize it briefly, it got her the Pulitzer Prize, the MacArthur Genius Prize, and a chair at Harvard.~

~So a pretty successful book~

Isabelle Roughol: ~Productive book~

Woody Holton: ~sense of the word. But also it's so beautiful. It's about a midwife in Maine, uh, who kept a very meticulous diary from 1785 till her death in 1812. And during that period delivered nearly 1,000 babies and she didn't lose a single mother in childbirth. Um, so, and a m- and a much, and very few of the babies.~

~And it's also the story of, of, you know, her heroism of canoeing across the Kennebec River in Maine where she lived when it was half ice and half, um, half unmelt, half water and so forth. Um, but anyway, so, uh, so I got interested in women's history just 'cause it's produced so much great scholarship and I know you've talked to, um, Carol Berkin who produced some of that scholarship.~

~Um, but here's how I came to Abigail Adams 'cause there's already, there were already and they're still coming out now, other great biographies of her. But here's how I got there.~

I was writing ~a book, ~a book that I admit is pretty boring called "Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution." And what makes it so boring is a lot of it's about bond [00:04:00] speculators and ~it, it, ~it argues that people who had bought up soldiers' war bonds at pennies on the dollar,~ uh,~ were really~ uh,~ indirectly the motive for the US Constitution because it gave the federal government taxing authority to pay them off.

It's a complicated argument. There's different versions of it. But ~because it was so, ~I knew that this was gonna be tough for readers ~and I, ~and I like having some readers outside~ uh,~ academia. So I was looking for one of these guys that I could use as a stand-in for all the others. ~You know, he would be my, uh,~ He would be ~the, ~the person that you really get to know.

And it was frustrating 'cause I'd find one guy's ~le-~ in letters, another guy's out letters, a third guy's account books, and there wasn't one guy for whom there was really a ton of documentation until when I was about to give up on this idea of having one person ~in my--~ to ~cor-~ carry through my book, I found my guy, and he wasn't a guy, it was Abigail Adams.

~Um, that she, uh, you know,~

Abigail Adams, the capitalist
---

Woody Holton: She was separated from her husband all the way from 197-- sorry, 19... from 1774 to 1784, a [00:05:00] decade. A couple of visits in the early years, but then he was in France, and his visits are a little tougher. ~He--~

She was separated from him for a decade, and she called it her widowhood, even though she was never actually a widow. She was emotionally miserable. She really loved John Adams. A hard thing to do, in my opinion, 'cause the guy was so full of himself, but she managed it and she missed him.

But, but, but during that same decade where she's so emotionally miserable, or maybe because of that misery, she took over the family's farm and finances, as many women did while their husbands were off at war, or like John off at Congress and off in France as a diplomat.

She took over the family finances and she ran them much better than John, her husband, the future president, ever had. ~Um, uh, ~She wasn't a great farmer,~ uh,~ but neither was John. It's not great soil up there. ~Uh, ~But she made him rich, A, by speculating, buying these bonds at a, at pennies on the dollar. ~Um, ~and the interest was figured on the [00:06:00] face value of these bonds.

So ~a, ~a bond that says, ~"Oh, we're gonna give you s- you know, ~this is a $100 bond, you get $6 a year." Okay, $6, that's not a bad interest rate. Fine. But she'd paid a fourth ~of the, ~of the face value, so she's really getting $24 a year, a massive annual return without touching ~the, ~the principle, which was eventually paid back at pretty close to face value.

She made a killing~ uh,~ off of these bonds. ~Um,~

And she also, ~uh, I know you're, you mentioned before we got on that you're from France originally. She, uh, ~while her husband was over there in France, then as now,~ uh,~ Americans believed that French fashions were the top of the world, and so she had him send her merchandise from France. And actually Barcelona handkerchiefs were a big thing at the time too. That was a women's~ uh,~ wearing apparel. ~And, ~And,~ uh,~ because there was a British blockade, a lot of those shipments were captured by the British, but for the few that weren't captured, you could name your own price as a seller. And so she made a killing,~ um,~ trading in this stuff.

And she [00:07:00] speculated in land in Vermont. ~Uh, you know as a Brit that~ There were 13 colonies, but there were trying to be 14,~ uh,~ who rebelled. Vermont wanted to be the 14th colony, and New York said, "No, you may not, because all that territory you guys claim is actually part of New York." So it was very much in flux, and that's the time to invest, and she did.

She bought up~ uh,~ hundreds of acres in the name of her husband, who was gone, and in the name of her eldest son, John Quincy Adams, who would later be president after his dad, and two other sons, and even in the name of her daughter,~ um,~ who was not yet married. And that's why Abigail could buy land in her name because she's a feme sole, that is a woman alone. ~M-~ They're allowed to own property, but married women are not.

So the one person in the family in whose name Abigail did not buy any of this Vermont speculative land that you buy at 300 acres a pop, ~um, ~the one person she didn't buy any land for was herself 'cause she couldn't because as a married woman she couldn't own property.

But ~she, um,~ she made all this money for John, and it's not like he [00:08:00] was shocked when he came home 'cause they'd been corresponding about it.

John Adams's conservative attitude to money
---

Woody Holton: But then the correspondence turns out to be really interesting because John was conservative in a lot of ways. ~Uh, ~He wanted to declare independence from Britain, but he really admired the British government and thought that we should probably institute something like a king and something like a House of Lords here,~ uh,~ here in the US even after we declared independence.

And he wasn't as bad ~as, ~as,~ uh,~ Alexander Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton, I can't believe that he's become~ uh,~ a sex symbol today because at the time he was Mr. Patriarchal Conservative. He thought that we should literally have a king, that we'd elect him the first time and then he'd serve for life. ~Of course it's a- middle behooves.~

And likewise, the Senate. I've got a brother-in-law who's in the US Senate, and he would like this, I'm sure, on, on a personal level because Hamilton's idea was that you elect senators and then they become the House of Lords, and they serve until they die. ~Um,~

And John Adams was not quite as conservative as Hamilton, but he's politically conservative. He [00:09:00] was also personally conservative. And,~ um,~ I'm sure you know about "Gone With the Wind," ~um, but, ~but there's one line that didn't make it from the book into the movie that, that goes to a lot of that white Southern... when they're not thinking about slaves, they're thinking about land. And Scarlett O'Hara's father says to him, and,~ uh,~ I'm already a South Carolinian but I'll go to the Georgia accent, "Land, Scarlett! Land's the only thing worth fighting for or dying for. It's land."

And so you think of that stereotype that I just played as the opposite of John Adams 'cause he's up there in Massachusetts where everybody's pinching pennies and making money and r- moving into merchant~ uh, uh, um, ~trade and industry and all that.

But John Adams had the same attitude. So whenever he had some spare money, he would write Abigail home and say, "Ooh, I hear Vesey's place, which is right next to my place, ~is, um,~ is up for sale and I really wanna buy Vesey's place." And she would write back saying,~ "Well,~ we can do that if you want, but you're only making 1% a year,~ uh, uh, ~annual return on your land, [00:10:00] and Vesey's place will be like that, 1% a year. And I can get you 20% a year or more,~ uh,~ on bonds."

And so there's this wonderful debate ~between the, uh, and I'm trying to think how this applies in my family. It actually does kind of apply in my family, you know, between the, the conservative investor husband and the risky investor wife. So yeah, this is partly 'cause, um, my wife is, is six years younger than me, but I'm, we're, you know, we're in our 60s now and I'm ready to move s- some money out of the stock market into something safer for our retirement.~

~She goes, "No, let's keep rolling the dice a little bit longer. It's at 50,000 now. Maybe it'll be 70,000." Uh, and so I just, it's occurred to me for the first time that that's another similarity. Uh, I've noticed lots of similarities between~

Isabelle Roughol: ~you married an Abigail Adams then.~

Woody Holton: ~I married an Abigail to my great j- not financial chagrin, but in every other respect.~

~So I'm the opposite of Abigail. Emotionally, I'm very happy. Financially, maybe not so much~

How Abigail sold imported goods from France
---

Isabelle Roughol: Well, I'm glad we're starting there because,~ um,~ when I was reading ~your, ~your biography,~ uh,~ and, you know, to be fair I wasn't super familiar with Abigail's life, but that's certainly something that I was not expecting at all. She is like this early American financial capitalist. ~Um, she's very, um, She's very shrewd about, about bonds specifically, I, and, you know, as you say, that, that, that's,~

That's quite a risk-taking~ um,~ attitude, right? Because bonds, ~I mean, ~it's sovereign debt. America ~is, ~is a new country. Who knows ~if, ~if it, ~you know, ~is gonna keep faith and repay its debt at this point. ~Um, ~It's very unsure. ~So, um, ~I thought that was pretty bold of her

Woody Holton: ~Yes.~ And, and what you were just articulating there, that's John Adams thinking. That's, you're thinking like John. You gotta think like Abigail if you're gonna ~make, ~make any money here 'cause you're right. But because it's so risky, it's just like her importing those Barcelona handkerchiefs and nice stuff from Paris and Amsterdam. ~Because it's risky.~

~Uh, uh, ~she once wrote him, "If one in [00:11:00] three arrives, I should be a gainer." ~Um, ~that, that is literally ~I'm, ~I'm charging more than four times the normal price. ~Uh, ~And ~so, um, ~so if we can just get a few of these through. And John at one point said, "Let me send you,~ uh,~ I've been sending these big shipments. One of them just got~ uh,~ captured by the British, so let me start sending you a little bit here and there."

And Lafayette~ uh,~ was in Paris. ~He, ~He basically took the winters off~ uh,~ during the American Revolution ~and, and, ~and went all the way home even though it's a two-month trip. ~Um, ~Anyway,~ uh, and~ Lafayette was coming back to America and ~so, uh, ~John Adams set him up with some stuff to give Abigail. That was Abigail's chance to meet Lafayette.

But my point is she s- he says,~ um, um, ~"It'll be much safer if instead of sending you one or two big shipments a year, I'll send you lots of little ones. We'll spread the risk." Which is again, John Adams type thinking. And Abigail wrote back a dutiful 18th century,~ uh, uh, uh, ~British and British world ~h- uh, ~wife and says, "You're the master, and if that's what you wanna do, that's what we'll do, wanna do."

But there's a problem with that, sending these little packages here and [00:12:00] there, is that you don't have a warehouse. And so in order ~to, ~to send small packages all the time, you're gonna have to buy retail. And it's all about buying wholesale at wholesale prices and then selling~ uh,~ at retail,~ uh,~ prices. So her whole point was, yes, it's risky. That's what makes it so profitable.

Was Abigail guilty of insider trading?
---

Woody Holton: And then I also have to tell you that there's risk and then there's risk. If your husband is in Congress, we're dealing with this issue right now in the American Congress. There's a bunch of politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, who wanna forbid congresspeople from~ uh,~ playing the stock market.

And I always thought that was always the case. And the good ones, like my brother-in-law, ~they, you know, ~they put their money into blind trusts so they don't know till they finish their congressional term whether they've lost money or made money. ~Um, ~But the bad ones absolutely. In fact, there's a stock index fund in the US now

Isabelle Roughol: The Nan- the Nancy Pelosi index, is it?

Woody Holton: Oh, you've heard of it?

Isabelle Roughol: I've heard... Yes.

Woody Holton: I wish I had money to spare 'cause [00:13:00] that's where I would put it.

Isabelle Roughol: She has an impressive, impressive,~ uh,~ return for sure. I mean, nothing like ~the, ~the president's ~re- uh, ~returns,~ but,~ but it's

Woody Holton: Oh, if I could get Nancy Pelosi and Abigail Adams together, that would be a place to be a fly on the wall.

Isabelle Roughol: I would wanna be in that room for sure.

How a preacher's kid got to be so boldz
---

Isabelle Roughol: So we started kind of somewhere in the middle,~ um, and there's, and there's a lot to unpack there. Um, and, and, and we'll get back to... I'll, I'm gonna put a pin in that, uh, one, one of, one of Abigail's imported pins perhaps. Uh, but I'm gonna put a pin in the, the conversations, the letters between John and Abigail, 'cause I think there's a lot to say there.~

~But first, since we started in the middle, let's,~ let's go back a little. ~Um, ~Who is Abigail before, before even she's Abigail Adams? And,~ um,~ how does she become this, ~you know, ~this great capitalist? Is there anything in her background that,~ that sort of, uh,~ brings her in that direction? I mean, she's, she's the daughter ~of a, of a, ~of a vicar, right?

Of a rector,~ uh,~ I

Woody Holton: She is. ~And we c- and, ~and we call them PKs over here, preacher's kids. ~And, and, ~And it's ~sort of ~the stereotype of preacher's kids is that they are the wildest kid in the community. ~Um, ~and,~ um,~ we don't have a ton of evidence of her~ uh,~ being wild in the sense ~that, ~that they are now,~ but,~ but she was, I think, wild in her thinking.

And I think that can come, ~um... I've, ~I've already told you I've come from ~a, ~a, from a political family. My father was also in politics like my sister and [00:14:00] her husband and so forth. And,~ um,~ it can give you a feeling of entitlement,~ uh, um, and, ~and,~ um,~ and a blindness to your privilege. But one of the things that comes with that is self-confidence.

~Uh, and so I, ~I think it's... so few records survive from that era, more from Abigail Adams than from most women by far. But even with her, so few records survive that we have to be very careful with our psychobiography of what made her so bold. ~Um, ~But if I had to name one thing. Oh, and her father was the speaker,~ uh,~ I'm sorry, her grandfather was the speaker of the House of Representatives in~ uh,~ Massachusetts.

~And given that there was no, um, Parliament claimed, you know, that's what the battle was about that, uh, that you and I are trying to avoid talking about since so we don't get into a ra- into a row. But, but, but~ The legislature was the Massachusetts legislature, right? It wasn't Parliament. And so my point is ~her dad, uh,~ after the governor, her granddad was, uh, was the top guy in Massachusetts.

Her father was a preacher. Her mother was a preacher's wife, which was, and I think this is still true, I know from,~ uh,~ from families I know where, where, uh, the husband or wife is a vicar, so is their spouse. ~Uh, ~And that was certainly true for the women of their time. Uh, you get [00:15:00] two for the price of one, ~uh, if you hire a married, uh, I mean if you, yeah, if a, ~if a,~ uh,~ church hires ~a, ~a married priest, he's getting two people, two people's labor.

And so the mom is out handing out hams to~ uh,~ the widows in town and things like that. And so I think she got, I mean ~uh, ~it's a problematic term, but _noblesse oblige_, a l- a bit of sense of "one must do what one can." ~Um, ~and,~ uh,~

That sort of modern liberalism is certainly not radicalism. There was nothing radical about either Abigail or John.

But I do think that,~ um,~ if you had to,~ uh, gun at,~ gun to my head, if I've got to say what made her so self-confident, ~it would be s-~ you would have to start with having a mom and a dad who were major figures in the community ~and a, ~and a grandfather who was a ~major, ~major,~ uh,~ person in the community. The result of all of that is a s- I think you can sum up in s- in a single word,~ um,~ and I'll be s- curious to see how this word crosses the Atlantic: saucy

That is, John and Abigail were constantly calling each other saucy, and that term survives in the US today [00:16:00] as sassy.

~Uh, I think there was a teen magazine that my sisters read when we were all that age called "Sassy." Um, but what, what-- Can I ask, what does saucy mean to you? If I were to call you saucy right now, would that be insulting, a compliment, or~

Isabelle Roughol: ~no. I mean, I think, I think sassy would probably be something that, uh, evokes more to people than... But, uh, I'm probably the wrong person to ask because I'm, I'm not a native English speaker. I learned my English in America. I've been in Britain for a decade now, so my vocabulary is probably very multicultural and all over the place. Um-~

Woody Holton: ~that's what, that's, that's, that's the term they use on each other. And, and, and that's, it's kind of a, it's kind of a flirting, a flirtatious word because it's one of these words like an Oreo cookie. On the outside it's kind of hard, but it's kinda sweet and creamy on the inside. Uh, that is, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a compliment disguised as an insult, which is, you know, isn't a lot of flirting.~

~That, that's the language of a lot of, that a lot of people at the bars are flirting with. And, and, um, they didn't meet at a bar. They met through friends as, as people met in those days. But, um, I think, I think~

Did the TV show get the Adams right?
---

Woody Holton: He certainly had self-confidence too, I would say too much.

Isabelle Roughol: Um, a bit too much, yeah.~ ~

~in that play that I like...~

~What's that?~

Woody Holton: You got that impression as well?

~too mu-~

Isabelle Roughol: Well, don't, I don't know,~ uh,~ how much of ~my, my, you know, my,~ my vision of Adams ~is, ~is,~ uh,~ Paul Giamatti ~in the, ~in the series. ~But, uh, but I think, um,~ But that's kinda how I picture him in my head, and also, ~you know, ~having read your book ~and, ~and a few others ~where he, ~where he shows up, and I think generally,~ uh, you know, ~same with Hamilton, same with Jefferson, every time I come across them, I'm like, "Ugh, these egos," you know? Which I guess you need to have done what they did, but,~ um, they're,~

they're particularly ~uh,~ prickly men sometimes

Woody Holton: Oh, prickly is a great word 'cause ~that's, ~that's one that pulls all those folks together. ~Uh, Because I was kind of about to say, I do think Jefferson and Adams are super different in that, and I really thought Giamatti dep-depicted this well, and I think... do you know the expression bugged out eyes? He's just got big eyes that, that protrude when he gets passionate about...~

~My southern accent comes out when I get mad or, or happy about something. Uh, for, for John, for Giamatti and his John Adams, it's not his accent that comes out, it's his eyes that come out of his head. Um, and s- and Jefferson, you don't, you never see that in Jefferson. He was more of a brooder. But that doesn't mean he's equal- He's equally angry, he's just bottling it, bottling it up.~

~Um, but a- but anyway... Oh, and but I,~ I should say that Abigail had a s- sense of that too. That is, she was as passionate as John was, and this was my biggest critique of the... I kn- I realize not everybody watching us has seen the HBO movie "John Adams," but I could describe very quickly. ~That portrays, uh,~ Giamatti portrays John Adams as passionate, and Abigail sort of behind him rubbing his [00:17:00] shoulders, "Calm down, John."

She's soothing him. And they got that not from the written record, but from the 1950s TV shows. There used to be one called "Father Knows Best," ~um, ~but it was really about mother knowing best because she soothes Father. She's home all day, of course, watching soap operas and vacuuming. And Dad comes home and he's all hot and bothered about something, and she calms him down.

And that stereotype may or may not be true for the 1950s. Probably not, 'cause most w- moms were working too. ~But, um, it, uh,~ but is certainly not true for the Adamses. Everybody that John Adams hated, and at various times he hated John Hancock, definitely Jefferson, even Hamilton, who was on, is ~in, ~in his political party once there were parties. Really George Washington, although you couldn't say so, it's kinda like saying you hated God. But everybody that John Adams hated, Abigail hated more.

~And that was another one I could really relate to from my personal situation, um, because, and I have to fluff this up a little bit in case the wrong person watches y- your show.~

~But my wife once had a boss who she didn't get along with so well. And I wouldn't say Gretchen hated this person, but I would say I did 'cause I had to hear about this person so much. And I think that's why Abigail, you know, echoed... Sometimes the echo is louder than the original noise, and this happened with the Adams.~

So don't think of her as calm and soothing. She was just as passionate as he was, and the show completely misses that. And misses [00:18:00] child-raising too, 'cause the kids completely followed orders from their parents, which cl- ~uh, ~I don't know. ~The, ~the person in charge of that obviously had never had kids. But Abigail would go, "Bed," and snap, the kids would go dashing off to bed. No back talk. I realize it was 18th century, but actually one of the cool things, completely unrelated and then I'll stop, is ~um~

One of the cool things about them is they were both opposed to corporal punishment of kids, which they weren't the only ones who had that attitude, but they were very,~ uh,~ very much on the cutting edge of that.

Phoebe Abdee and Abigail's ambivalent attitude to slavery
---

Woody Holton: Mm. Well, uh, that's not the question I was gonna ask, but ~since you mentioned corporal~

~sorry, I'm all over the map.~

Isabelle Roughol: ~No, no, it's fine. It's fine. Um, but ~Since you mentioned corporal punishment, that made me think ~of, ~of slavery. What was their attitude~ um,~ to slavery? ~Was, ~Was slavery~ um,~ present in their life? It was for ~many, ~many of the Founding Fathers,~ but, but I think not the Adams.~

Woody Holton: Yeah. ~Uh, well, you're wrong, um, about Abigail.~ John,~ uh,~ th- had very little experience of slavery,~ um,~ ever until maybe as president. There were a lot of slaves in Washington, DC. ~Uh, and, and you know, they...~ He was president when the capital moved from Philadelphia down to Washington, so he~ uh,~ started to experience slavery.

~Well, ~no, and ~he, ~[00:19:00] he ~had ~had Black workers. I think they were not enslaved in Philadelphia. But my point is she's really~ um,~ the one to talk about here 'cause she was raised in part by slaves. ~Uh, ~There was one woman in particular named Phoebe, later married a man named Abdee, Phoebe Abdee.~ Uh,~ who, ~um...~

here's the, here's one of the s- most stunning comments from Abigail.

Let's see. ~Um, ~Slavery's abolished in 1783 by the same Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court,~ uh,~ that would later~ uh,~ make Massachusetts the first state to,~ uh,~ legalize gay marriage, quoting the same phrase, "All men are born equally free." How can we stop some pe- men and women,~ uh,~ from marrying?

~Um, ~Anyway, the Supreme Court in 1783 of Massachusetts, after a woman named Mum Bett, who she later changed to Elizabeth Freeman, she sued and got free in 1783, and then the precedent,~ uh,~ that was earlier, but then the precedent gets set in '83.

~Uh, ~Anyway,~ so, um ~Phoebe Abdee was freed in 1783, but by then she was [00:20:00] old. ~Um, ~And Abigail really took care of her. So Phoebe ~you know, ~would come back from her garden or whatever and find ~a, ~a load of firewood on her porch or half ~of a, of a, ~of a pig. ~Um, ~And that was Abigail. ~Um, ~and it was-- You could call it reparations.

She'd done her own little reparations effort 'cause she understood maybe she wouldn't have done this if Phoebe had been freed at age 20, but since she'd be- been a- freed at age 60, which was old back then,~ um,~ she~ uh,~ felt a responsibility to her.

Again, it ~sort of ~rhymes with what she had done as a kid, going around with her mom to deliver charity to the widows and other~ uh,~ poor folks.

So on the one hand, she's got a somewhat patronizing attitude ~'cause, ~'cause she was the patron of Phoebe Abdee.

On the other hand, after Abigail's parents had both died, her mother in a dysentery epidemic in '75, her father in '83, basically of ~old a-~ old age. After ~her, ~her natural parents had died, she was talking about Phoebe Abdee in some other context, and Abigail [00:21:00] referred to Phoebe as "the only surviving parent I have."

And you know as a French speaker that parent can mean something a little broader than mom and dad ~in, ~in French. So she may have been pulling ~from, ~from that, but,~ um,~ either way, she's thinking of her as a relative. ~Uh,~

And I can tell you ~a, ~a story from the 1790s. ~Um, sort of ~Like Melania, she didn't spend a lot of time in the capital with her husband when he was president,~ uh,~ partly because,~ um,~ she was aware of malaria in Philadelphia and even more so in DC.

But anyway, she's up in Massachusetts and she writes John a letter. We're glad when they're separated 'cause we get letters. But she's up there in Massachusetts and she has a servant boy. ~Uh, ~It's fair to call him a boy 'cause he was quite young, but who was free but was Black. And,~ um,~ with her encouragement, he enrolled at the local primary school.

The other kids... I had an experience like this 200 years later. ~Um, uh, ~the,~ um,~ the other,~ um,~ kids in this school, the white kids, they had no problem with him, but [00:22:00] their parents said, "We're all gonna pull our kids out of the school if you don't get rid of this Black kid." ~Um, ~And Abigail, you know, James came and told her about what, what had happened, and she s- went and spoke with the schoolmaster and some of the parents and quoted,~ um, uh, ~the golden rule to them, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

So she really kinda looks like Martin Luther King ~in, ~in, of the 1790s in that story.

Understanding Abigail's racism
---

Woody Holton: But now I gotta take you back a little bit to 1784. ~And I called you a Brit before. Now you really don't want me to call you 'cause this is... Something about being, breathing that British air.~ Of course, Britain had abolished slavery long before we did in 1865. They d- ~uh, ~a court decision,~ uh,~ took a while for anybody to obey it, but of 1772, had abolished slavery in Britain 12 years before she got there.

But she goes to Othello,~ um,~ and I think, I'm not a Shakespeare scholar, but I think one of the whole points of that play is bigotry is wrong. You know, one of the reasons that Iago doesn't like Othello, is determined to bring him down, is who's this Black guy who's advanced so much higher than me or whatever.[00:23:00]

So it's an anti-s- anti-slavery and anti-racism, not even anti-slavery 'cause slavery's not a story in there. It's an anti-racist play. And Abigail wrote home to her sister in Massachusetts,~ um,~ "I could scarcely conceal my disgust at this sooty," sooty, S-O-O-T-Y, ~you know, ~because black as soot,~ uh,~ "this sooty Black man touching the fair Desdemona."

And it was really that hand-to-hand contact.~ I do know from Shakespeare's era that kissing was considered less intimate than holding hands, um, or, you know, shaking hands even. But anyway, uh, some reason her...~ She had also that racist gene, and I think it may have come out in a,~ in,~ in,~ um, in, ~in London because as an American abroad, she felt a need,~ and,~ and the ambassadors ~tech- officially, I mean, ~unofficially, that's what he was, the ambassador.

They called him First Minister or whatever. ~He's, um, um, ~no Minister Plenipotentiary. Anyway,~ she's, she's, ~she's representing the United States in London, and slavery is an institution over here, and she hates it, but she feels like she's gotta defend it.

~I remember being a tourist somewhere with where, uh, some German guy was making fun of the United States, and I forget who we had just invaded, but everything he said was legit.~

~But because I was overseas and because he was so over the top, I find I almost said, I did not say, "You guys have never forgiven us for 1945, have you?" That is... And, and my point was I could kind of relate to Abi- I mean, I couldn't.~ It was horrific what she said, but it was, it's a challenge for all of us who [00:24:00] write biographies of her. How can you with the one hand call Phoebe your parent and quote the golden rule to get your Black servant boy back ~into this integrate, ~into this white school, and on the other hand, talk about the sooty~ um, uh, ~Othello? ~So, ~So you tell me,~ uh,~ your interpretation. It's certainly out there to, waiting to be interpreted how she could

Isabelle Roughol: Y-

Woody Holton: go to such extremes.~ ~

Isabelle Roughol: ~Well, I mean, ~Reading you, I mean, one, I think she's just, ~you know, n- none, ~none,~ uh,~ none of us are immune from unconscious biases, and certainly not ~in her, ~in her era. I think she's probably, ~you know, just, ~just absolutely swimming ~in this, ~in this sea of racial prejudice,~ uh,~ which, ~you know, even, ~even the most enlightened, it would be very hard to be~ um,~ completely free of it.

~Um, ~And also she doesn't seem ~very, ~very happy when she's in Europe. She certainly does not like French women very much. ~Uh, ~And she doesn't seem to be~ um, you know, as, ~as open-minded as she might be about other things. She doesn't seem to be,~ uh, you know, ~the way I'm reading it, particularly excited about discovering foreign cultures ~and, ~and~ uh,~ foreign people and, you know... ~she's, uh,~ She has a very,~ um,~ even though [00:25:00] she is not a Puritan herself,~ I,~ I read her as a very American Puritan showing up in Europe and thinking, "What is this ~des-~ decadence in front of me?"

~You know?~

Woody Holton: ~Yes. ~As a French native, you'll be shocked to hear that there's a certain class of Americans who go to Europe so that they can come home and say, "I never realized how much I liked the good old US of A until I was over there."

Isabelle Roughol: ~Well, ~there's a whole class

of French people who go abroad ~for, ~for the same reasons, I think.

Woody Holton: Right, right.~ But she may have partaken of some of that. ~

Isabelle Roughol: ~them~

Woody Holton: ~Yeah, yeah. ~

Golden Rule Contradictions
---

Woody Holton: ~It's all, it's all-- Well, and p- students, I've,~ I've brought that question up with students and they've pointed out,~ um,~ Othello was a soldier,~ um,~ and the kid was a kid.

~Um, and Phe- so, so both what-- Well, Phoebe was feeble by the time, um, that Abigail was helping her out. Um, ~and so I think there are a lot of people,~ um,~ it won't shock you to hear that I'm not big on Donald Trump, but,~ uh,~ I did notice the other day that,~ uh, uh, um, ~one of my fellow South Carolinians with a car even more beat up than mine had stalled out in the middle of the intersection.

They happened to be Black, and the guy helping him with the classic pickup truck and multiple Trump stickers happened to be white. So I think if you're vulnerable,~ um,~ you're gonna bring out my belief in the golden rule. If [00:26:00] you're powerful and carrying ~a, a, ~a sword or ~whatever, ~whatever... And she was right about Othello, by the way.

He did end up stabbing his wife. And may- you know, she knew the play by the time she saw it, so maybe that had

Isabelle Roughol: Yes, that may be it

Woody Holton: too. That may have been a more of a feminist statement ~than a, ~than a racist statement. ~But as~

Isabelle Roughol: ~and well, there's also... Sorry. There, ~there's also, ~and then, yeah, ~and then we'll stop talking about Othello. I should probably know the play better, ~uh, to,~ to comment on it. B

---

Isabelle Roughol: ut she,~ um, you know, ~she's commenting ~on, ~on the relationship with the white woman, right? Which,~ um, even, ~even the, in, in that era, and in many eras after,~ uh,~ even the progressive, even the anti-slavery,~ uh,~ folks were not keen on mixed relationships or, ~you know, ~there were plenty of abolitionists who thought that ~the, the, ~the freed,~ uh,~ Black people should just move to Africa, ~uh, ~right? ~So,~

Woody Holton: Absolutely. ~Including, ~including Lincoln. He still said in the Emancipation Proclamation,~ uh,~ so these were, ~you know, ~it didn't free a single slave. It only says in places that we conquer after this, we're gonna free slaves. ~Um, ~But then what are we gonna do with them? Ship them off to Africa. It's in the [00:27:00] Emancipation Proclamation that they'll be colonized maybe in the far west, ~maybe in, ~maybe in Africa.

And the Quakers, you could go back to my era, the 18th century, the Quakers were the only white friends that Black people had~ uh,~ in the quest against slavery. But name a Black Quaker. There's hardly any because the Quakers didn't want Black people ~in their, ~in their faith. So you're certainly,~ uh,~ certainly right.

And, oh,~ and,~ and I do think you're right also, ~the last thing...~ Sex is the last thing to change. ~Um, the, and it is, there was a great, uh, is for your education about America, and you may have already seen this. ~There's a wonderful Sidney Poitier movie called "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner." And the older couple about my age~ uh,~ are lovely liberals in every respect. They may have even marched in Washington in 1963. But then their beautiful w- wonder bread skinned white daughter comes home with Sidney Poitier. I mean, I would be thrilled if my daughter or son came home with Sidney Poitier 'cause he's Si- he's him, but

it took, it was a, took a little selling. I th- and of course, the line is always, "What will the neighbors say?" Now, I don't care, but what will the neighbors say anyway?

Isabelle Roughol: Okay. ~W~

Ad break
---

Isabelle Roughol: ~ell, ~we've [00:28:00] traveled all over~ uh,~ history. ~Uh, ~We're gonna take a quick break, and then we're gonna come back to Abigail, and we'll come back to Abigail's correspondence and her most~ uh,~ famous letter. But first, we'll take a quick break. We'll be right back.

Isabelle Roughol: Hey, it's Isabelle again. Just a quick midroll break to say a huge welcome and thank you to new members of Broad History this week. Deborah, Katie, Adrienne, Erin, Tony, Lynn, Cynthia, Jason, Amy, Marsha, Kathleen, Julie, Peggy, Cheryl, Merryll, Jennifer, Beth, Tanya, Melissa, and Camilla. Wow. Your support means the world to me. There is no Broad History without you, so thank you.

How do you get your name in the show? Well, it's easy. You go to broad history.com/membership and you sign up. For a few quid bucks, euros a month, you'll get the podcast early and ad free, party access and discounts to events, merch, anything else I can come up with in the next few months as we grow, and you [00:29:00] will be supporting independent writing and podcasting, research and storytelling into women's history.

Your support right now just as I'm getting going, is incredibly important and I am so grateful for it. It's at broadhistory.com/membership. Okay, back to the show.

"Remember the Ladies": Abigail's most famous letter
---

Isabelle Roughol: And we are back with Woody Holton to talk about Abigail Adams. Now, Abigail is famous for three words~ uh, She's probably the most, the most famous, uh, woman of the American Revolution and of the early republic, and it's because of three words~ that have often been very misunderstood.~ Um, who...~

~And, ~And the words ~that~ are in a letter that she writes to~ um,~ her husband, to John Adams. And so if you'll~ uh,~ humor me, I will read it, but I will actually read ~a, ~a larger section of it because it is so often taken out of context, ~and then, ~and then I would love ~your, ~your thoughts on what she actually means.

So she writes, "I long to hear that you have declared an independency." ~Um, ~So she writes in March '76, like about three months before the Declaration of Independence.

"I long to [00:30:00] hear that you have declared an independency, and by the way, in the new ~code, ~code of laws, which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.

That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend. Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity?

Men of sense in all ages abhor those [00:31:00] customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex."

And then she finishes with ~a, ~a bit of a softening. ~Uh, ~"Regard us, then, as beings placed by providence under your protection, and in imitation of the Supreme Being, make use of that power only for our happiness."

That's the full bit.

And that's, ~you know, ~in a letter where she talks about spring is coming, and we should be planting vegetables, ~and and, ~and news from home, and news from the front, and it's all over the place. It's like there's journalism in there, ~and there's, ~and there's, ~you know, ~just very mundane home talk, and then there's this.

What is she talking about?

Abigail was not a feminist
---

Woody Holton: Well, first, I'm very glad that you read as far down into that letter as you did,~ 'cause I think the key-- Well, and first, ~especially going all the way to ~happiness because~ "regard us ~as beings protected, uh, being,~ as beings placed under your protection." ~Um I, you know, ~it would never occur to me, I swear,~ I'm,~ I'm, ~you know, ~I'm not a, I'm not a good feminist, but even I would never say to my wife if she was sitting over there, "God has placed you under my protection."

~You know, ~that, that's a reminder that I don't think we should call her a feminist since that has a very 20th and 21st century [00:32:00] meaning. ~I, ~I think proto-feminist is certainly,~ uh,~ fair and correct,~ um,~ particularly when we finally get to what she, to her will,~ which,~ which we should save time for.

But, um,~ ~

~okay, ~okay.

We will get to the will. ~The, the, um... So, so, ~so I'm glad you got to the protection part because we don't wanna overdo this. ~And,~

and actually another picture of ~that that I, ~that I picked up writing the book was this woman never in her life rode a horse. Lots of women rode horses. Enslaved women ro- knew how to ride horses in many cases ~in, ~in the South.

~Um, ~and sh- and I don't know why she didn't. ~Um, she, uh,~ I think she thought it was not ladylike enough. And so it just shows how complex we are that somebody who was such a forerunner,~ uh,~ in so many ways was also two steps forward and then there's that one step back.

"The vicious and the lawless"
---

Woody Holton: So I'm glad you got down there that far, but the thing I'm really glad you got to was the vicious and the lawless.

~Um, this letter w- w- uh, ~She later threatens rebellion and all this o- There's a lot of fun stuff in there. And she, l- as lots of scholars have pointed out, she takes a lot of John's own [00:33:00] phrases and throws them back at him. That is, he'd used them against the British, "All men would be tyrants if they could."

~Well, ~that's a standard part of the sort of s- political psychology of American patriots or American rebels against the British, that there's ~a, ~a natural tendency ~and, uh,~ to be tyrannical. And so they're worried about being the victims of that tyranny. And she's pointing out, " well, wait a minute. When you say men, I think you meant or you could have meant, should have meant men in the sense of male. ~Uh, ~all males are naturally tyrannical."

~So, ~so there's lots of clever things. There's even fun things ~and the, ~and the threat to rebel,~ uh,~ is the most fun of all. But there's really serious business going on here, and that is spousal abuse. ~And, ~And I wish I could take credit for it, and I more wish I could remember who.

It may have been Elaine Crane, but one of the other~ uh,~ Abigail biographers,~ uh,~ was the first to really point this out,~ um,~ that it's really about the vicious and lawless. There's two kinds of men, and she's partly daring to prove that he's in the good kind. ~Um, ~but then there's this other bad kind that [00:34:00] tyrannize over their wife to the extent

And she doesn't q- It would be going too far to, to be too explicit and say men who hit their wives. But I was persuaded,~ uh,~ o- once you hear that, you can't unhear it, I think, in everything she's writing,~ uh,~ in that letter.

And then the same scholar that I'm remembering,~ um,~ and I'm pretty sure it's Elaine Crane, also points out really sadly, that,~ uh,~ there was an alcohol gene, they didn't use that language at the time,~ uh,~ in the Smith family, that is her family,~ um,~ which results in the death of two of her three sons,~ um, who, ~who basically died of alcoholism.

~Um, ~And it also w- was a terrible problem ~for her, um, uh, uh, ~for her brother, William. ~Um, and, uh, he, ~He had a bunch of kids and couldn't take care of them, and so they were ~sort of ~farmed out to other families. And, ~you know, uh, you know, ~the wife had maybe no say in that. ~But, ~but,~ uh, um, ~alcohol and,~ uh,~ a form of abuse w- there's no evidence, I really wanna be sure to not libel~ uh, William Adam, uh,~ William Smith,~ um, uh, um, ~because there's no [00:35:00] evidence of him physically hitting,~ uh,~ his wife, ~um, ~but he certainly emotionally abused her and may well have physically abused her too.

And so,~ um, ~this public statement th- that's quoted on every statue of Abigail, and rightly so, had a very personal side to it. A, the nothing is m- can be more intimate ~than, ~than spousal violence. But then even more personal than that, if,~ uh,~ this other scholar is right, ~that it's, ~that it's really about,~ um,~ about her own brother.

~Um, ~so you start from that and then y- and then... And it is amazing that she can go from that to kidding around~ uh,~ about rebelling. But as I think students have also pointed this out to me, that the joking, ~you know, ~there's joking and then there's joking, and she is kidding around, but she kinda had to kid around ~to soften, ~to soften the claim.

Isabelle Roughol: Yeah. I think, ~I mean, with, ~with that interpretation,~ which,~ which I hadn't heard and I, and was like really kind of a lightning moment for me when I was reading your book, because with that interpretation, now I reread this letter and I [00:36:00] find it so incredibly modern, right? Because ~we, you know, ~we're talking about domestic violence ~and, ~and femicide ~and, and, um,~ a lot nowadays. It's a big part ~of, ~of,~ um, uh, ~women's battles. ~Um,~

But also in the way that she is~ um,~ softening the blow. ~The way she's almost, you know, there's al-~ There's almost a bit ~of a, ~of a Not All Men thing there, being like, "I'm not talking about you," you know? But,~ um, you know, ~it's,~ I, I just, ~I just ~found it, ~found it really interesting.

She was not advocating for political rights
---

Isabelle Roughol: The thing that she's not talking about, which is often how "Remember the Ladies" has been interpreted ~as the,~ is the vote, right? ~Did, ~did she ever want to vote? Did she... Was it

not even, was it just, was it just out of even consideration at the time? ~To, to include women in~

Woody Holton: The one way I'd say it's not out of consideration, she does complain there that men are not-- that women are not represented,~ um, uh, you know, uh, ~in,

Isabelle Roughol: Yeah, laws without,~ uh,~ no voice or representation. Yeah, she

Woody Holton: Yes, absolutely. And she writes another letter in June of 1782,~ uh,~ that is, is very ~sort of ~sad ~and, ~and ~not, ~not feisty or saucy,~ uh,~ like much of the tone of this letter, where she really [00:37:00] goes into complaining about women being taxed and,~ um,~ having their sons taken away to war and all that, and not being represented and not having a vote.

But,~ um, uh, ~she never went beyond complaining about it. D- demanding a change to that was still beyond the pale. It was still beyond the pale for the majority of the people at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, and it was only because,~ uh,~ Frederick Douglass stood up and agreed with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others at the convention in saying that this is the right upon which all the others are based, that we gotta ask for the right to vote.

~So, ~so that would-- that's what I'd say in her defense, is 72 years later, it was still,~ um,~ unthinkable. ~I mean, ~it's not that people didn't want it, and there were anonymous pieces in the newspaper. ~Uh, ~Judith Sergeant Murray was saying, "Why shouldn't women vote?" ~Um, ~there, there was things out there, mostly anonymous things.

~Um, ~but for her, for Abigail, ~it was, ~it was too much,~ uh,~ to ask for. ~Uh, and this reminds me of, just say one other thing about the context. Um, dependence is in the air. As you mentioned, it's spring, and those New England winters, I've lived through a couple of them, they could be tough. Um, and, and so I think part of what's going on here is she's just in a good mood.~

~She's in a saucy, saucy mood.~

The disarming power of humour
---

Woody Holton: And even though she's talking about the most horrible thing,~ um,~ spousal violence, she can do it~ uh, in a, um,~ with that threat to rebel. [00:38:00] But the problem with that,~ the,~ the one problem with threatening to rebel~ um,~ is~ uh,~ John knows she's joking, and so he writes back saying, "I cannot but laugh at your feminine propositions."

And as, uh, Cokie Roberts was another biographer of Abigail Adams and a big NPR person, and she used to say Abigail must have wanted to kill him. ~Uh, ~And I'm sure that's true. And so that's the problem. If you do something, if you put the joke in there to soften it, then that's an opening. It's like playing bridge and, oh wow, if I play the seven of spades, he's gonna play the eight of spades, and ~he, ~he did kinda trump her there.

~That's not a trump card, but do you know what I mean?~

Isabelle Roughol: ~Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. I, ~I thought that too when I read it. I thought, ~you know, she, she did, she did... ~We've all, we've all, I, I just, it's one of those moment where I felt, ~you know, uh, two,~ 250 years apart, I felt I could relate entirely to Abigail's experience, which is how do you deliver ~you know, the, the, the, ~the feminist creed that you want to deliver, ~you know, ~but you soften it so that it doesn't ~you know, uh, ~rankle, ~but then you, ~but then you make it serious enough that people don't respond with a joke, and then opposite you, you know you have someone ~who, ~who [00:39:00] laughs it off. I,~ uh,~ we've all been there. So I thought I really, I really related with that.

The mutual education of women
---

Isabelle Roughol: ~Um, ~I think the one thing that she's quite,~ um,~ insistent, consistently very vocal ~and, ~and more so,~ you know, than, ~than the vote clearly throughout her life is education, is girls' education.

~Um, that, you know, ~'cause I think people connect her to the vote, connect her to Remember the Ladies.

Actually, it's girls' education ~that, ~that I think she's most passionate about. What is it that, what is the problem that she sees?

Woody Holton: ~Well, ~first let me just say how much I agree, just 'cause ~if you, ~if you were to try to stat-- s- ~um, ~do it statistically, she mentions,~ um,~ spousal violence, if we're even right, and I think we are, about that once that I can think of in all of her 2,000 surviving letters. And she mentions education all the time.

~Um, and the, uh, she, um,~ She clearly was pissed off, uh, that she had a cousin who went to Harvard, and she wrote him saying, "I wish I could go to Harvard," uh, and, "Tell me everything you learned in, ~in, in, in, in, ~in algebra class," or, or whatever. ~Uh, which of course is impossible, um, even if, even... And,~ and that was probably [00:40:00] another little joke that he took as a joke, and so he didn't teach her a damn thing.

~Um, ~But we also shouldn't go too far into thinking that she was uneducated. A, you read the letters, you can tell she's very educated.

I-- being on your talk show reminds me of a talk show, an all-night talk show I was on in Denver,~ uh,~ Colorado one time. So at 3:00 in the morning, ~it was f- I guess 5:00 a.m. my time,~ some guy asked me,~ um,~ "Oh, what would,~ uh,~ what would Abigail Adams have thought about 9/11?"

~And, ~and I actually had an answer,~ uh,~ about 9/11 because she knew something about Islam.~ Uh,~ back when they were courting in their courtship letters. By the way, all these letters are available online for free, and I really recommend them to people. Just,~ uh,~ Google "Adams Electronic archive." Uh, anyway, ~those, uh, those--~ oh, thank you.

~Those, um, uh, uh, oh,~ in one of the courtship letters she said, "I wish I could fly to you o- on the wings of Buraq, of the Buraq of Muhammad." And I go, "What?" ~Uh, ~so I of course had to look it up because my knowledge of, uh, Islam and most religions is pretty thin. ~Uh, ~But that's how Muhammad traveled up to heaven, he was on a Buraq, a flying [00:41:00] horse.

Uh, and so she once again, not for the first time, beat me ~in, ~in classic knowledge, and that's because she read the newspapers where there would be excerpts from the... It was, it was hard to come up with enough stuff to put in a colonial newspaper before the Revolution. I think one reason they fought the Revolution was so they'd have some American news.

And so they

Isabelle Roughol: War,

war has always been great for newspapers.

Woody Holton: And for Americans learning geography, yeah. But anyway,~ they, they, um, she, she read s- and~ they would stuff ~type, you know, poi- uh, ~poems and history of Russia and all this stuff. You could learn that stuff from the papers, but also her grandfather had a huge collection of books, which she was known to have consulted.

But to me, the most interesting thing about her education is the letters she wrote her peers and especially female cousins, where they would say, "Oh, I've just read..." She would say, you'll like this as a French woman, "I've read Molière and he's so dirty. It's terrible. I hate it. I had to keep reading," you know,

Isabelle Roughol: See why I think she's a Puritan?

Woody Holton: Yes, exactly.

Isabelle Roughol: You hate Molière. Come on

Woody Holton: ~Right. ~Right. Yeah. Well, by her [00:42:00] standards. And as I say, "I had to keep reading," she says. ~Uh, but, but...~ And then her friend would write back, say, "Yeah, and, and I find Chesterfield even worse." There's a guy named Lord Chesterfield who basically ~wrote letters on to, uh,~ wrote advice to young men on how to seduce~ uh,~ young women. Uh, she hated him. The only thing she ever published in her lifetime was by accident. ~She, ~She sent somebody else's denunciation of Lord Chesterfield to a Boston newspaper with an introduction, and he didn't, she didn't mean for the introduction to be printed. That's her one publication out of all the great stuff she wrote.

Anyway, my point is these letters that she wrote back and forth with her female friends and cousins, you'd think, "Oh, how far away did that cousin live? Three colonies away? Three towns away?" Nope. The, uh, she lived next door. They're writing letters to practice their skills. So I would not describe her the way you would describe Ben Franklin as self-educated, I would call her socially educated.

~I think it was my hero, Laura Orrick, who I mentioned at the start of our conversation, uh, who came up with the term social medicine, that it's not just the doctor or even not just the m- midwife. There's a whole community of people who are collectively agreeing on what would be good palliative care, which is about all they could do in those days.~

~And, and, and so I borrowed that term social for, they're so-- They're not, ~They're not self-educated, they are mutually educated. And she did [00:43:00] get far enough to know what, A, to write ~a, ~a mean letter, although in terrible s- handwriting, in my opinion,~ and,~ and terrible spelling,~ uh, as she was very... The one of the thing,~ One of the few things that she was really insecure about was her spelling. ~Uh, ~but everybody spelled poorly in those days, so ~that's, that's, ~that's not a very good thing to worry about. ~Um, but,~

but,~ um, what was I gonna say? She, um, she, uh,~ she also was educated enough to know how uneducated she was,~ uh,~ and was determined to rectify that for herself. And so while she was in London, she attended lectures,~ uh,~ and in Philadelphia, she would go to, I think she went to some dissections.

She went to watch Congress. Although the one time she went to watch Congress was when they were voting on whether the bond speculators or the soldiers who'd actually done the fighting were gonna get the windfall at the end of the w- ~uh, ~at- after the Constitution was adopted and the federal government had tax money ~to, ~to spend.

~Um, ~but ~she, uh, much, ~much,~ uh,~ more generously, she was constantly pushing,~ uh,~ young women to take opportunities to get educated and pushing men to allow women to attend their lectures. ~You know, uh, ~Public lectures were a big thing. This is back in the day where if you lived in New Haven, [00:44:00] Connecticut, even if you had nobody, or near New Haven, even if you had nobody in the graduating class, you would still go to graduation for the pure entertainment.

~And for me, I didn't even go to my... No, I did go to one of my graduations. So anyway, to think of that as something you would do when you didn't have to, uh, was pretty amazing. Um, ~and so yes, I agree ~that, that ~that's the biggest,~ uh,~ thing she p- she pushed ~in, ~in her letters for women was education. 'Cause of course, if you have education, then you can battle the other things and maybe,~ uh,~ ultimately battle for the vote.

Isabelle Roughol: ~Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, um,~ And in that way, I think ~she, ~she prefigures,~ uh, you know, ~a lot of ~the, ~the feminist battles of the 19th century, right? Because it j- it very much becomes a theme, ~you know. You say, ~you say women can't do this, you say women can't do that. Well, of course, nobody's teaching them, you know.

No one is born ~with, ~with those skills, right? ~You have to, ~You have to develop them, and so you're keeping women as, you know, eternal children, not just legally,~ but,~ but also by refusing to develop their intellects.

Woody Holton: Absolutely. That's all over the Seneca Falls resolution. ~Um, uh, ~Women can't do this because they're uneducated, and by the way, we're gonna keep you uneducated

Isabelle Roughol: By the way, you can't be educated. Yes, you're not allowed ~in, ~in universities and schools, et cetera.

The first First Lady in Washington
---

Isabelle Roughol: There's two things I want to talk [00:45:00] about. ~Uh, ~well, one thing I want to talk about before we talk about her will, which I promise you we will,~ um,~ is that she is the first First Lady to move to Washington.~ Uh, as, as the...~

~Or to, does she live in Washington and, or, or~ She lives ~in the,~ in the White House briefly. .

Woody Holton: Yeah. Before you guys burned it down.

Isabelle Roughol: Sorry.

Woody Holton: still very bitter about that

Isabelle Roughol: ~you know, we've, we've, ~We've each done some things we regret. ~Uh, um, what does she, ~what does she think of it? What does she think ~of, ~of,~ uh,~ life in Washington and of life in federal politics, which,~ uh,~ John ~you know, ~dragged her into?

Woody Holton: ~Well, um, ~Sh- she hated the White House. ~It was, ~it was unfinished. They moved into a, to,~ uh,~ a fixer-upper. ~Um, it, ~it, it had been built, but it, but not furnished and,~ uh,~ it leaked and all that stuff. And,~ uh, you know, ~like all the first ladies after her, she's-- that's part of her job. ~Um, ~We'll see whether,~ um,~ AOC's husband also takes care of the plumbing in the White House when she's

Isabelle Roughol: Are we opening bets ~on, ~on AOC then?

Woody Holton: Yeah.

I think that's a different website. ~Uh, but she, um, uh, she,~ So she hated that part of the job. She was exposed to slavery~ uh, in a, in a, ~in a bigger way~ uh,~ than [00:46:00] before,~ uh,~ and became more opposed to it than before, than ever before, I think. ~Um, ~and,~ um, and, ~and she was aware that it was a malaria trap,~ uh,~ being ~a f-~ a swampy southern area and didn't like it for that reason.

~And, ~And I think I'm doing a book on disease now, so I'm noticing that disease is the thing behind so many,~ uh,~ many things. ~But, um,~ so ~she, she, ~she was not a happy camper in Washington. Yeah, and she didn't like seeing people saying horrible things about,~ uh,~ her husband.

What we don't like about Abigail
---

Woody Holton: You know, one of the questions that I disappoint people ~ask~ is the most frequently asked question of a, a Abigail biographer probably is,~ um,~ what influence did she have on her husband?

~Um, ~And on his politics, I have to say not much. She tended to be more extreme than him. ~You know, ~One of his low moments as president was the Alien and Sedition Acts, putting congressmen and newspaper editors in jail, and it actually happened,~ uh,~ for criticizing him and his administration. And of course, there was a war to justify it,~ um, um, ~a war against the French,~ uh,~ that took place only ~at, ~at sea between [00:47:00] 1798 and 1800.

But,~ uh,~ he got a lot of criticism, rightly so, I think most of us agree, for signing the Alien and Sedition Acts. But she thought they should be tougher,~ um,~ because she was quite,~ um,~ the partisan. ~Um, ~yeah, we haven't had time to talk about things I don't like about her, but ~I'll, ~I'll just mention, tick off a couple of them.

One was that she was an absolute partisan. She was a hater, to use internet language. And she also didn't allow two of her,~ uh,~ kids to marry the person they truly loved. ~Um, and, ~and,~ um,~ I,~ uh,~ w- this was a time ~when, ~when the kids were getting control over who they married and they weren't all, they weren't arranged marriages.

And so technically, ~you know, ~if they'd pushed harder, but she had the force,~ uh, of, ~of all of her power and deployed it against both John Quincy and Nabby, her daughter, marrying the right person. ~Um, ~and,~ um,~ and that was sad. ~Um, the, um,~

The final will and testament of Abigail Adams
---

Woody Holton: The place where she did have the biggest influence on her husband, to go back to that, is the will.

So if you're ready to talk about that, ~we can, ~we can

Isabelle Roughol: Yes. Yes, we can wrap up on the Will[00:48:00]

Woody Holton: all right. So remember that John, when Abigail wrote him in 1776 saying, "Remember the ladies," ~um, ~he wrote back saying, "I cannot but laugh." ~Um, and so~

So that's the basis for people m- like me saying she didn't influence him much, and she didn't in the terms of actual laws getting passed.

But you'll also recall my saying early on that she made a killing for him in all sorts of speculative and ~sort of un-~ some of them unscrupulous ways. And all of that money, because she's married to him, is his money to do with... If he'd had a mistress, he could've spent it all on his mistress,~ uh,~ because it's his money even though she earned it, and that was one of the great forms of oppression that lasted for centuries and did not end in 1776 with independence.

The,~ um,~ the 13 states all continued~ to follow, um,~ to follow the English common law. It was only when we started to bring in states like Louisiana and Mississippi, which had a little bit of a,~ uh,~ a French history to them, and then later Texas and Florida and so forth,~ um, that, ~that women started to own property, and ~we ven-~ eventually we get in, starting in [00:49:00] 1839, women's, married women's property laws.

~Uh, ~but that's way in the future. That's long after she died. And so she was not allowed to own property, but here's the great discovery that caused me to say, "I have to write this book," and that is she's not allowed to own property as a married woman. She did it anyway. She took some of that money she'd made for her husband and set it aside.

She called it,~ uh,~ "my own pocket money." Th- this, and tellingly, "This money which I call mine," 'cause she knew legally it wasn't. ~Um, ~But she used it for things her husband didn't normally,~ uh,~ approve of,~ um,~ like supporting Phoebe more than,~ um, than, ~than he would've wanted her to, and for, ~um... ~Oh, she used it to bribe her kids to move closer to her,~ uh,~ which if my parents ~had ~had that much money, they probably would've done that.

"Hey, we'll ... Don't worry about work. There's a mansion you can have if you'll just move next door to us." ~Um, ~I could relate to that,~ uh,~ now that I've got kids of my own out there. ~Um, But, um,~ She used it for interesting purposes. ~Um,~

But she also held onto a bunch of it so that in [00:50:00] January 1816, when she thought she was dying,~ um,~ she had,~ um,~ it was 10,000,~ uh,~ $6,000, but you could probably multiply that times 20 to get a sense of what it would buy today.

~Um, uh, ~she had, she still had that much to write in her will. ~Um, ~and in her will, sh- ~well, ~she had all of these nephews and sons-in-law and ~stepsons and, I mean, not stepsons, ~grandsons and so forth, who were really in bad financial shape. The 19th century was ups and downs in the economy, and a lot of them were in the real low stages, and she left these guys nothing.

She left it all to her nieces, her daughters-in-law, her granddaughters, and even to her female servants. She left it all to women. But that's not even the most surprising thing about it. The most surprising thing about it is that she wrote that will at all in 1816 because her husband was still alive.

He famously died. Oh, we're about to celebrate the 150th anniversary, I'm sorry, the 200th anniversary ~of, ~of John Adams' [00:51:00] death on July, it'll be in the past tense for people watching us because it was on July 4th, 1826, same day as Jefferson. So my point is that her husband died after her, so there was no reason to write her, for her to write a will.

And no right, she had no right to write a will either. And she was aware of that. She wrote,~ uh,~ "I, Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, by and with his consent," and that changed everything. Even though he didn't sign it or anything, she claimed ~that it was up,~ that he had approved it. And then it was up to him after he found this will in his wife's papers,~ um,~ he would've been completely within his rights to just throw it in the fire because he was the master of the house.

~Um, ~But what he actually did was comply with it to the letter. And to me, that almost makes up for him saying, "I cannot but laugh at your feminine~ uh,~ proposals." ~Um, ~because,~ uh,~ within their own household,~ um, uh, ~he was acknowledging that even though English common law is still operative in [00:52:00] America, didn't give her the right ~to, ~to own property and write a will, sh- there was a moral right which she insisted on and which he acknowledged.

And to me, that was their most fascinating collaboration.

Legacy and Farewell
---

Isabelle Roughol: Yeah, I think ~there's, ~there's a lot of, of tenderness to ~that, ~that final,~ um,~ final act ~in, ~in both,~ uh,~ John Adams and their sons and male relatives not, not fighting this, ~not in, ~in acknowledging ~her, ~her ownership ~and, ~and her decision. ~Um, and, ~and in her,~ uh,~ continuing 'cause for her whole life she cared for a lot of relatives, and in her death she continued to care for all the women in her life, which, yeah, I thought was a very beautiful ending to her life and an ending to our conversation.

Thank you so much, Woody Holton, for taking so much time ~to,~ to help us know Abigail Adams so much better.

Woody Holton: Well, I've really en-enjoyed the conversation. I told you I've had certain questions that I always get asked, but you didn't ask me any of those. So these are all new questions, so it made for a really fun conversation. So thank you, and I, I, I enjoyed it.

Isabelle Roughol: ~I'm glad. I'm ~

Woody Holton: ~things to go look up now. Okay~

Isabelle Roughol: ~I hope I didn't miss anything important, but thank you so much~

Woody Holton: ~All right. Take care. Bye-bye. All right~

Isabelle Roughol: [00:53:00] That was Woody Holton. You'll find his book "Abigail Adams: A Life" in the Broad History bookstore, as well as his latest "Liberty is Sweet", where he continues to expand who we think about when we think about the American Revolution. If you look closely at the cover, the patriot pointing their gun at two red coats is actually a woman in disguise. The bookshop is linked in the show notes as always.

If you don't subscribe already, sign up for the newsletter and read the articles at broadhistory.com. This week I wrote an explainer on coverture, the reason why married women like Abigail Adams could not own property. There's more background on the women we talked about last week with Carol Berkin, you know, women like Deborah Sampson, Lydia Darragh, Sybil Ludington, and Molly Pitcher, and also why it's so difficult to even know the truth of their lives. And there's some great illustrations too by a Broad History listener, Heather Rogers, who doodles American [00:54:00] presidential history. It is great fun. It's all at broadhistory.com where you can also opt to support the show and get every episode early and ad free by signing up for membership.

And finally, if you enjoy the show and you must have if you listened this far, please go and nominate it for Listeners' Choice in the British Podcast Awards. And no, you do not need to be British to vote for this particular British election. It is britishpodcastawards.com/voting. I haven't won an award since college and I'd kind of like to thank you so much.

This has been Broad history, a podcast about the history you think you know with women in it this time. I've been your host, Isabelle Roughol. Music by Aaron Kenny. I'll talk to you next week. [00:55:00]