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Abigail Adams: A Life Paperback – Illustrated, June 1, 2010

by Woody Holton (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 378 ratings
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In this new, vivid, nuanced portrait, now in paperback, prize-winning historian Woody Holton uses original sources and letters for the first time in a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams's life story and of women's roles in the creation of the republic.

In this vivid new biography of Abigail Adams, the most illustrious woman of the founding era, Bancroft Award–winning historian Woody Holton offers a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams’s life story and of women’s roles in the creation of the republic.

Using previously overlooked documents from numerous archives, Abigail Adams shows that the wife of the second president of the United States was far more charismatic and influential than historians have realized. One of the finest writers of her age, Adams passionately campaigned for women’s education, denounced sex discrimination, and matched wits not only with her brilliant husband, John, but with Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. When male Patriots ignored her famous appeal to “Remember the Ladies,” she accomplished her own personal declaration of independence: Defying centuries of legislation that assigned married women’s property to their husbands, she amassed a fortune in her own name.

Adams’s life story encapsulates the history of the founding era, for she defined herself in relation to the people she loved or hated (she was never neutral), a cast of characters that included her mother and sisters; Benjamin Franklin and James Lovell, her husband’s bawdy congressional colleagues; Phoebe Abdee, her father’s former slave; her financially naïve husband; and her son John Quincy.

At once epic and intimate, Abigail Adams, sheds light on a complicated, fascinating woman, one of the most beloved figures of American history.
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  1. Print length
    512 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    June 1, 2010
  4. Dimensions
    6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    1416546812
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1416546818
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Holton... allows Abigail's voice to radiate off the page; the biography grips the reader from the beginning tale of Abigail writing her own will. A wonderful book for revolutionary history buffs, women's studies majors, and biography lovers." --Library Journal, starred review

“Holton vividly captures the brilliance, charm, and spunk of Abigail Adams, and shows why she deserves her place at the table along with her husband John and the other Founders. A must-read book for understanding the founding of our nation.” --Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

"Captivating... biography and social history. Through his engaging prose, Holton provides a nuanced picture of Adams as representative of many women of her era yet also ahead of her time." --Journal of American History

About the Author

Woody Holton is McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches and researches Early American history, especially the American Revolution, with a focus on economic history and on African Americans, Native Americans, and women. He is the author of several previous books, including Abigail Adams, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize; his second book, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atria Books; 1st edition (June 1, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 512 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1416546812
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1416546818
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.24 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.4 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 378 ratings

About the author

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Woody Holton

Woody Holton

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Woody Holton (Ph.D., Duke University) is an McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina, where he teaches classes on African Americans, Native America, early American women, the origins of the Constitution, Abigail Adams, and the era of the American Revolution. He is especially interested in studying the impact of ordinary citizens on grand political events. He is the author of Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (1999), which won the Organization of American Historians Merle Curti Social History Award; Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (2007), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; and Abigail Adams, which won the Bancroft Prize.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
378 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Peacemaker
5.0 out of 5 stars Could not put this book down!
Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2013
Verified Purchase
With a couple of notable exceptions, I agree with most of the reviews of Woody Holton's wonderful biography of Abigail Adams. The other 5 star reviews say it better than I, so I will try not to repeat too much.

Holton's "Abigail Adams" was immensely readable as well as thought-provoking: for example, it made me wonder how many other women of that era felt the same as she did about women's rights, or the lack thereof? AA might not have been an anomaly, were we able to ever know. The obvious fact is, her letters to her husband and other family members were preserved because the Adams family was famous. It's interesting just to wonder, since it can never be discovered, how many other women felt exactly the same way, especially about the lack of education, legal rights (especially regarding abuse), and the inability to own anything in their own right? Her sisters obviously felt the same way, and it stands to reason that other women did too. However, some might not have had the type of husband or families that would even "permit" a discussion of these rights, much less "allow" her to handle monetary transactions and advise others as well. (Witness the one or two star reviews by people who even now feel threatened by the "feminist" from over two-hundred years ago). I would think that it would have taken a lot of courage to express those kind of beliefs during a time when women were little more than slaves. AA had a loving and mostly supportive husband, but others could have risked their lives for saying and doing the same things. It also makes me wonder if any of her direct descendants, male or female, were especially inspired enough by her ideas to try to change anything?

Finally, I learned so much history of the lives of real people from reading her letters. This book, however, was not just the letters; I've read other bios of AA, and I particularly liked the way Prof Holton interpreted and explained them. I'm a lifelong history lover/reader and I agree with another reviewer that it's books like this one that should be assigned EARLY in school history classes (middle school, at least?) so that people will grow up wanting to learn about the history of our country and world! It is so interesting and exciting, everyone should read this book and others like it. Thank you Professor Holton!
10 people found this helpful
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Natalie Watson
4.0 out of 5 stars Unknown History
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2013
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I love that this book discusses details such as exactly where Abigail Adams was during the Boston Tea Party, and there is extensive inclusion of quotations from Abigail's and John's personal letters. A great read for those looking for another side of the story or a woman's viewpoint during the time period.

The only possible negative aspect is that the details do sometimes slow the reader.
3 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Good Book!
Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2016
Verified Purchase
This is a clearly written biography. It reveals Abigail Adams as an early champion of women's rights; and this as a natural extension both of the revolutionary cause, and her own heart felt concern for her family, especially the women, so dependent on the wisdom of their husbands for their financial future. With such an intelligent and principled woman as first lady to our second president, it seems inevitable that American women should win the vote. This biography clearly enjoys and offers to the reader a more complete view of Mrs. Adams than other biographies. She is not just a docile support to her husband, but, instead, a woman who lovingly challenges her husband's narcissism ( and to Mr. Adams' credit, he loves this about her ) while still supporting all that is best in him. This biography provides important information about the "rights" of women in revolutionary America and Mrs. Adams' efforts to expand those very limited freedoms.
16 people found this helpful
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Nava
5.0 out of 5 stars Abigail is bad ass
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2019
Verified Purchase
Bought for a history class and project for my 11th grader. As interesting a read as you can get for historical woman. My child has dyslexia so purchased the book to read along as the audiobook played as well for comprehension. So I heard most of it - some parts I actually gasped at with shock and wow go Abigail with your bad self. Some parts were so boring I fell asleep but I’m not one to love historical books. Abigail was pretty awesome and this is well written with lots and lots of information.
One person found this helpful
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Mollynash
5.0 out of 5 stars Satisfing biography
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2012
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Unique among "founding fathers/mothers" of the United States, this is the story of Abigail Adams, wife of our second president, mother of our sixth, and great grandmother to an additional generation of diplomats. The daughter of a minister whose schooling was minimal, she strove to improve education for girls and an end to coverture, the legal precept that married women ceased to be legal entities and become chattel. Although she spent many years as a single parent, (on several occasions her husband took the oldest boys to Europe on his diplomatic missions,) she managed the family farm, the children's education, became an entrepreneur, and made more money than did her husband did, until he was elected President. Not only did she amass the wealth, but she earmarked a portion of it as her money, and successfully willed it to her children. If those were not enough accomplishments, she and John Adams wrote thousands of letters to each other. Abigail also supplemented the incomes of her two sisters, and her own children as adults.

One can hardly curtail one's admiration for this woman. The biographer writes with a sense of wonder at all these achievements. His scholarship is remarkable in its thoroughness.
16 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

C. Ball
5.0 out of 5 stars Much more to her life than just 'Remember the Ladies'!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 8, 2014
Verified Purchase
As much an endlessly engrossing biography of Abigail Adams herself, this is also an insightful look at the lives of women in the Revolutionary era. With no political or legal standing in their own right many women chafed against the strictures of the era, and Abigail Adams was a classic, perhaps a defining, example of this. Her 'Remember the Ladies' letter to husband John is perhaps the best known example of her early campaigning for the rights of women, but it was by no means the only or the last.

True to this, John Adams is very much a background figure in this biography. When writing of the wives of powerful and important men, too often the primary figure herself tends to get lost, obscured not only by the force and vigour of the male characters, but by the lack of documentary evidence available. It is fortunate then that Abigail and John were both great letter-writers, often separated for months on end by John's political career, and that Abigail did not destroy her correspondence upon her death, unlike George Washington's wife Martha.

Abigail comes across an immensely likeable figure and one modern audiences can immediately sympathise with, with her frustration at the lack of educational opportunities for women, her 'sauciness' and independent will, her financial transactions and political opinions. She lived in a truly remarkable era, and it's as much as a testament to her own character as the skill of the author that the Revolution itself pales in interest to Abigail's own life, much as the two were inseparable intertwined.
2 people found this helpful
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