That we know Abigail Adams, and her husband John, with such depth and intimacy, is thanks in large part to their extraordinary correspondence: more than 1,000 letters between them, that we still have today. "She is an independent spirit and so she is curious and inquisitive and loving and not always rational and, you know, she’s one of us." "Abigail was very much her own woman and she was a bit fiery," said Sara Martin, the series editor of the Adams Family Correspondence at the Massachusetts Historical Society. But access is not an issue when it comes to the private letters between our second president, Massachusetts' own John Adams, and his remarkable wife, Abigail - and the American public is all the richer for it. And each of these experiences unfolds in Abigail’s own handwriting, a wife and mother to American presidents who has inspired generations of historians, politicians, and women.The recent controversy over Hilary Clinton's email while serving as secretary of state has once again brought the question of public access to the correspondence of our public figures to the fore. James, her life in Washington as First Lady, and her time in Quincy after John retired from the Presidency in 1801. She writes about her time England in 1784, when John served as Minister to the Court of St. In these very personal letters Abigail describes traveling to London, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. Letters with transcriptions that also appear in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s Adams Papers Digital Edition include links out their locations in that resource, which includes more of Abigail’s letters and other correspondence from her husband, children, and grandchildren located at other institutions. On this website you can browse galleries of these digital images of Abigail’s letters and read and search transcriptions and brief abstracts of many of them. This illustrated inventory also marks the first time digital images of these letters have appeared online. While some of the letters have been transcribed and appear in print in the AAS Proceedings (parts one and two) and the Massachusetts Historical Society’s Adams Papers Digital Edition, the text of many letters has been unavailable online until now. The letters in this collection are addressed almost exclusively to Abigail’s sister Mary and Mary’s daughter, Lucy Cranch Greenleaf (1767-1846). AAS purchased the collection in 1942, the letters having been preserved by a great-grandchild of Abigail’s sister, Mary Smith Cranch (1741-1811).
The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) holds a collection of over 200 letters written by Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams (1735-1826), the second president of the United States.
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