Abigail Adams by Woody Holton, Free Press '09, $30, 483 pages, ISBN #1416546804. Index, source notes, no bibliography, b&w images sprinkled through the text. Endpapers contain family trees of Smith and Adams families.
Few, if any, dead American women have increased more in stature in the past decade than has Abigail Adams. First, historian David McCullough in the book John Adams discovered a cache of previously-unpublished correspondence between John and Abigail Adams that revealed her to be every bit an equal partner in family and business affairs and a confidant of her husband, the president. Then came HBO's The Adams Chronicles in 2008 and the strong portrayal of Abigail by actress Laura Linney.
Now University of Richmond historian Woody Holton takes things a step farther. Not only did Abigail assert her will in marriage, but she was a feminist activist for her gender, although such a term was unknown at the time. In particular, he writes, she pressed "an oft-repeated demand for better educational opportunities."
"Adams did not merely write about women's rights," argues Holton, "she also fought for them, both in the public eye and in her own home." While the law dicated that women had no right to own property, Adams drafted a will "created to distribute what she considered to be her property to her (primarily female) heirs -- an outright challenge to the laws of the time..."
Holton also delves into the marriage of John and Abigail, writing that "they disagreed passionately about a host of topics: how to educate their children, how openly they should express their feelings for each other; and -- most persistently -- how to manage the family's finances. In these disputes, Abigail proved to be a tough negotiator." Abigail Adams received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal.
