Abigail Adams, 1744-1818

Abigail Smith Adams portrait by Gilbert Stuart. Photo credit - National Gallery of Art.

A Founding Mother of the United States, a Women’s Rights Advocate, and the Second First Lady.

Abigail Smith was born and raised in Massachusetts. Her father was a liberal minister, her mother was a member of the famous Quincy family mother, and she had two sisters. At a time when women were not allowed to receive a formal education, she was homeschooled and satisfied her appetite for knowledge at the family’s library, forming progressive views.

After a two-year courtship, she married John Adams, a country lawyer, and became his closest advisor and partner. They settled in the house John had inherited from his father in Braintree, MA. When his practice expanded, John had to frequently travel while Abigail managed their finances, investments, household, and growing family. For a while, they even moved to Boston next to his practice. Between 1784 and 1788, Abigail joined John in his diplomatic missions in Paris and London.

On March 4th, 1797, John became the second president of the United States, and she was the first lady. They lived in the Presidential Mansion in Philadelphia and later in the White House in Washington, DC. She was a politically active first lady, made frequent public appearances, and was involved in the decision-making process, paving the way for future first ladies to be proactive figures. When John lost presidential re-election, the family retired to Peacefield in Quincy in 1800.

During his frequent travels before and during the presidency, the couple corresponded in more than 1100 letters, where Abigail demonstrated her talent for writing and opinionated spirit. In one of those letters, she urges her husband to consider women’s rights in the new legislation after independence, warning that if not given equal representation: “women will rebel.”

He dismissed her suggestion by writing back that it makes him laugh, but her words “remember the ladies” became an iconic feminist slogan.

Before her death, she wrote a will favoring her female relatives. It was an act of protest against the laws prohibiting married women from owning assets.

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“I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.”

“I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.”

Fun Facts

  • She managed the household by herself during the American Revolutionary War, providing refuge for soldiers and melting utensils to make bullets.
  • The Adams were the first presidential couple to reside in the White House in Washington, DC.
  • As opposed to her father, who was a slaver, she supported abolition.
  • She gave birth to six children. Her son, John Quincy Adams, was the 6th president.
  • In 1948, during a campaign swing, US President Harry Truman said at the steps of the Church of the Presidents that Abigail Adams "would have been a better president than her husband."
  • In 1997 a statue of her with her son, the 6th US President John Quincy Adams, was dedicated in Quincy, MA. In 2018 it was removed and stayed in storage till today.
  • She is one of the three women featured in the Boston Women's Memorial, alongside, Lucy Stone, the founder of the ‘Woman’s Journal,’ and Phillis Wheatley, the enslaved poet. The memorial was dedicated in 2003 and created by the renowned sculptress Meredith Bergmann.
  • In November 2022, a new statue of her was dedicated in Quincy, MA, standing close to her husband and son's statues.

Creations By and About Her

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Category: Activism & Feminism, Literature & Poetry, and Politics & Leaders
Tags: 19th Amendment Centennial Anniversary, Abolitionist, First Lady, Suffragist, The Pioneering Women of the National Mall Neighborhood, and WDC Metro Area Women

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Adelaide-Johnson-WWP
Arts

Adelaide Johnson, 1859-1955

A feminist artist and sculptress, known as “The sculptor of the women’s suffrage movement.”

Born as Sarah Adeline Johnson in Plymouth, IL, to a family of farmers. She received her education attending rural schools, and after graduation, she began her art training, taking classes at the St. Louis School of Design. She was only 18 years old when she exhibited her artworks at the 1877 St. Louis Exposition, and thanks to the prizes she won, she was able to move to Chicago and make a living from her art. At 23, on her way to her studio, she fell 20 feet into an open elevator shaft. She was severely injured, but the compensation fee she was awarded enabled her the financial freedom to study sculpture and painting in Europe. As a feminist and women’s rights activist, she expressed her political views in her art. Among the many individual busts she sculptured, were busts of the Suffrage Movement’s leaders – Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucretia Mott, which she presented in the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 (The busts are currently located at the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument Museum). She wanted to put the busts as a group monument at the US Capitol Rotunda but did not get the support at that time. After the 19th Amendment was ratified, she got the funding from the philanthropist Alva Belmont and the commission from the National Woman’s Party. She went to Italy to bring an 8-ton piece of marble to her studio and created her most famous artwork – “Group Portrait Monument to Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony.” The statue was dedicated in a special ceremony on Susan B. Anthony’s birthday, February 15th, 1921, in the US Capitol. This was the pick of Johnson’s career. During the 1930s, her career declined, and she had financial problems. In 1939, 80 years old Johnson invited the press to witness how she destroys her own artworks as a protest against her living conditions as well as against her shattered dream of opening a studio-museum honoring the suffragists and women’s rights organizations. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Adelina-Otero-Warren-WWP
Activism & Feminism

Adelina Otero-Warren, 1881-1965

A suffrage leader, educator, and politician. The first Latina to run for US Congress and one of the first’s women to serve as a government official in New Mexico.

Adelina “Nina” Otero Warren was born near Los Lunas, New Mexico. Her family was among the early settlers in New Mexico, and her parents were part of the Hispanic elite. When she was 2 years old, her father was killed by an Anglo squatter. A few years later, her mother married an English businessman, and she grew up in a multicultural environment. She was influenced by her mother, who was an advocate for social and educational developments and served as the director of Santa Fe’s Board of Education. At 16, the family relocated to Santa Fe, where she became a socialite. At the age of 26, she married Lieutenant Rawson D. Warren, a cavalry officer who was nine years older than her. Though the marriage did not last long, she kept her x-husband’s last name and called herself a widow, so she would not be stigmatized as a divorced woman.   At 31, Nina moved to NYC to keep house for her brother. There, she became active in Anne Morgan’s settlement house, working alongside the famous suffragist Alice Paul and organizing crafts programs for working-class women. Two years later, her mother died, and Nina returned to Santa Fe to take care of her half-siblings. Upon her arrival, she started working for the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. Soon she became the first Mexican-American state leader of the Congressional Union in New Mexico, raising support from the Spanish-speaking community as well as from the English-speaking community. Using her family connections, she was a successful lobbyist for voting in favor of the Nineteenth Amendment, and she had a key role in its ratification in 1920. In 1922, at the age of 41, Nina ran as the Republican Party nominee for New Mexico to the US House of Representatives – The first Latina to run for the US Congress. During her campaign, she spoke Spanish and advocated for the improvement of education, health care, and welfare services, as well as for the preservation of Hispano heritage and culture. Ultimately, she lost the election by less than 9%, probably because it was discovered that she was a divorcee, not a widow. In 1917 Nina was appointed as the Santa Fe Superintendent of Instruction – one of the first women to serve as government officials in New Mexico. In her 12 years in office, she worked tirelessly to improve the education of Hispano. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Alice-Paul-WWP
Law

Alice Paul, 1885-1977

A leader for women’s rights and famous for promoting a federal constitutional amendment for woman suffrage.

Alice Paul was born to a wealthy Quaker family on a small New Jersey farm. As Quakers, her parents supported gender equality, including education for women. From a young age, she developed a passion for reading and learning. After graduating high school, top of her class, she studied biology at Swarthmore College, where she was a member of the Executive Board of Student Government. It sparked her interest in political activism, and she moved to NYC to complete a fellowship at the College Settlement House social work. She went on to study and gain multiple degrees, including a Ph.D. in sociology and three law degrees. During a fellowship in England, Paul became involved with the militant Women’s Social and Political Union in London, first selling Suffragist magazines on street corners and then, alongside fellow American suffragette Lucy Burns, organized events, campaigns and established the Scottish branch of the organization. She learned militant protest tactics, such as picketing and hunger strikes, and became known as one who put herself in danger in public events to increase the visibility of the movement. Despite the violent experience of 7 arrests, 3 imprisonments, and 4-week force-feeding, campaigning for the cause of suffrage became her life mission. Upon her return home in 1910, Paul joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). She became a central figure in organizing the 1913 Women March in Washington the day before President Wilson’s inauguration, in which about 8000 women marched through Pennsylvania Avenue, viewed by a half million people, many of them harassing and heckling the marchers. In 1916, Paul’s militant approach created tension between her and the NAWSA, and she left to found the National Woman’s Party (NWP). The following year, she stood wearing a white dress and holding purple and gold banners as part of the Silent Sentinels – the first political picket in front of the White House. She was arrested but did not receive the special treatment she was supposed to as a political prisoner, living in harsh conditions and poor sanitation. With her fellow suffragist prisoners, Paul embarked on a hunger strike, for which she was transferred to the prison’s psychiatric ward, being tied up and forced fed. Her methods led to the end of the long struggle of the US suffrage movement, with the ratification of the 19th amendment, granting the legal voting right for women. After women’s suffrage was achieved, Paul moved her efforts to the international arena: co-founding the World Woman’s Party and lobbing for gender equality. She then went back to national politics, drafting the Equal Rights Amendment, which is still in the process of ratification during the 21st century. In 1945, she lobbied for the inclusion of the equality for women clause in the United Nations proclamations, and at the age of 79, she ensured that the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had a ‘protection for women’ paragraph. Paul was considered professionally demanding and personally conservative, including being criticized for elitism and racism within the suffragist movement. Among the many biographies of her life, little is mentioned about her personal life. Paul passed away at 92 years old in New Jersey. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
Alva-Belmont-WWP
Activism & Feminism

Alva E. Belmont, 1853-1933

An important financial supporter of the US suffrage movement, and president of the National Woman's Party (1921-1933).

Alva Erskine Smith was born into a wealthy family in Alabama and lived in New York City and Paris. She married into an even wealthier family, building her public image in the New York City elite by organizing big parties. In 1895, she divorced her husband because of his infidelities. Her decision challenged the social norm that rich men could get away with anything – and she was awarded the largest divorce settlement of that time. Soon after, she married Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, one of her first husband’s best friends. After her second husband’s death in 1908, she devoted her time, connections, and fortune to women’s suffrage. Often referred to as “Mrs. O.H.P. Belmont”, she was a sponsor and member of the executive boards of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU) and National Woman’s Party (NWP). She also created her own suffrage organization, the Political Equality Association. For the political purpose, Belmont used her summer mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. Known as Marble House, for it consumed more than half a million cubic feet of marble. She opened it for tours, that included lectures on woman suffrage, and organized suffrage conferences there in 1909 and 1914. Conference speakers included Julia Ward Howe, Anna Howard Shaw, and Alva’s daughter Consuelo. In order to open the Suffrage Movement beyond the white upper classes, she established 11 suffrage settlement houses in Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Long Island Those. Those were social spaces for meetings, classes, entertainment, reading rooms, and affordable lunch for working-class women and men. The plates and cups in those settlement “restaurants” had the motto “Votes for Women” printed on them. After devoting her life and fortune to fight for gender equality and women’s right to vote, even though she lived to see the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, she swore she would never vote until there was a woman nominated for the position of president. This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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