Abigail adams biography book

Library Biography # 24
Here’s what I learned about Abigail Adams: She was a feminist, supported emancipation, preferred to sleep with the shutters closed, an entrepreneur, a speculator, and a control freak.

Holton’s biography of Abigail Adams was my second biography on her. The first one I read, Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution, was more of quick portrayal and really didn’t get into the details that Holton does. Holton explains a lot more of Abigail’s doings while John Adams is away. For example, all her dealings – selling merchandise, her investment in bonds, buying land, the money that she claimed as her own – was NEVER mentioned in the other book. Abigail is directly responsible for their good fortunes.

This book appears to have its highs and its lows. There were times where I felt the text was well written and easily flowed. There were times were I felt kind of confused and hung up. I wonder if the author had went back and started adding extra details or something that made the text feel choppier than it should have. After about 300 pages I got BORED. Mostly because the book became more about the Adams family as a whole – Nabby, John Quincy, Charles, Thomas – than it does about Abigail.

Holton becomes obsessed about a few occurrences that reappear in the book again and again. He uses these one-time occurrences to try to disprove a couple things about Abigail Adams.
1- That she is against slavery
2- That she is a feminist
So Adams makes a few comments in regards of seeing the play Othello – Holton analyzes her observations as racist. Instead of going by all Abigail had written her entire life, Holton gives this one note entirely too much credit. And I don’t think he gives it much consideration or interpretation other than face value. Then, because she follows conventions at the time in addressing form slaves and free blacks, apparently this is evidence that she isn’t against slavery. Then she criticizes the cook of the ship she takes to Europe. Again, according to Holton, proof she's racist. Nevermind that Holton also makes a point that she also criticizes white servants. Well, to me that proves that she is just being critical and is not racist because if she was, she wouldn’t complain about the whites or would go on about how whites are superior. She never appears to do this. And apparently when Holton makes these accusations, he overlooks how she cares for her father’s former slave, Phoebe, for the rest of her life.

Then, because she makes some judgments against foreign women on their appearance, he assumes that she really isn’t a feminist. Holton makes sure he brings this up nearly every time she speaks in favor of women having more rights. It more seems that Abigail was experiencing culture shock!

Here’s the thing – Adams expected slavery to come to an end as a result of the Revolution – part of the book even says this was to be part of the Declaration of Independence but was removed from the final draft (it’s not stated but I’m guessing even back then we had politicians disagreeing to the point that concessions were made that were in their interest rather than the interest of the people as a whole). Also, just because she passed judgement on women doesn’t mean she isn’t a feminist – she educated her daughter, she constantly fought with her husband about changing things for women, she may have made purchases in her husband’s name, but she knew that much of the assets she accrued from her business dealings was hers – even though legally it wasn’t, she claimed it as hers. Then, at the end of her life, she writes a will with entitlements for her two surviving children and only the women in her family. How can a few off-hand comments undo a life spent proving the opposite? It also befuddles me that I read somewhere else that her great-grandson said she wasn't a feminist. All I can say that it boils down to is that a bunch of men making these declarations.

Abigail Adams wasn’t perfect. If anything, all Holton is able to prove she becomes more judgmental the older she gets – only proving, perhaps she is more like her father after all. It has nothing to do with her personal beliefs. The evidence that Adams acted in favor of women’s rights and spoke against slavery outweighs all the times she was judgmental or for lack of a better description, stuck up.

In the end, Abigail is a strong woman who is confident in her mind and often tries to persuade her family to follow her reasoning. If it's within her reach to influence, Abigail Adams typically got her way. After all, she won the shutters dispute.