First Ladies For Dummies. Marcus A. Stadelmann, PhD

the colonists responded with the Boston Tea Party, where people disguised as Indians boarded three British ships and dumped 342 crates of tea into the Boston harbor. Parliament responded with the so-called Intolerable Acts, closing Boston harbor and repealing many basic Colonial rights, including the right to local self-government.

      

Abigail became a revolutionary herself. She melted pewter spoons to make bullets for the minutemen, American patriots fighting the British military.

      Living life abroad

After most of Massachusetts had been liberated from the British by 1776 and the Declaration of Independence, which John Adams helped edit, was signed in March of 1776, John Adams was sent to England in 1777 as a diplomat. Abigail raised their children, ran the family farm, and managed the couple’s finances by herself for almost seven years. Abigail finally joined her husband after six years of separation and then went with him to France after he had been appointed U.S. minister to France. Between 1784 and 1788, she lived with her husband in both France and England.

      

Back then, Congress didn’t provide funding for running a diplomatic residence, and being minister almost ruined the Adams family. The couple had to pay for the expected social events held in their London and Paris homes out of their own pocket.

      Abigail was happy to return home in 1788, and after John Adams was elected Vice President of the United States, she moved with him to New York, the first capital of the United States, and later Philadelphia after the capital moved. In Philadelphia, she became close friends with Marth Washington and hosted formal dinners every Wednesday for members of Congress and foreign dignitaries.

      In 1794, her health began to decline, and she moved back to Massachusetts. She and John corresponded almost daily by letters discussing both national and local politics.

      Becoming First Lady

      After John Adams became President of the United States in 1797, he urged Abigail to move back to the capital still in Philadelphia. She took up the role of hostess, receiving visitors to the presidential mansion and held dinners attended by lawmakers and foreign diplomats.

      She had become America’s second First Lady. Her functions included supervising a large staff and planning formal dinners in the President’s mansion.

      

Being president was similar to being a diplomat. Back then, presidents received a very low presidential salary but still were expected to entertain. This imposed a great financial burden on not only the president but the whole family. For an average July 4th celebration, the Adamses had to buy 200 pounds of cake and two ¼ casks of wine and rum to entertain all members of Congress and their families.

      Turning into Mrs. President

      Informally, Abigail discussed policy options with John Adams and gave him frequent advice. Soon, the political elite in Washington referred to her as an informal cabinet secretary.

Abigail was frequently called Mrs. President because of the influence she had over John. She discussed important problems with him, helped draft official letters, and basically became a minister without portfolio. For this reason, Abigail became a heroine for women who believed in women’s rights.

      Abigail supported John’s policies, including the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts (see nearby sidebar). She believed that her husband and family were unfairly attacked by the press, which made libelous statements, and she believed that the press needed to be punished.

      At the same time, Abigail was the first First Lady to attempt to manipulate the media to shape public opinion toward her husband and family. She planted stories in the Boston newspapers by sending them selected letters and news stories that she approved of.

      THE ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS

      The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed at the urging of President Adams and consisted of four separate acts designed to silence any opposition to his rule:

       The Naturalization Act made it more difficult to become a U.S. citizen. It mandated living in the country 14 years instead of 7 to acquire citizenship.

       The Alien Act allowed the government to deport foreigners who were considered a threat to the United States.

       The Alien Enemies Act allowed the government to imprison foreigners who were considered a threat to the United States.

       The Sedition Act made it a crime to criticize the federal government. Criticizing the president or Congress was punishable by imprisonment and fines up to $5,000.

      President Adams never enthusiastically enforced the first three acts, but he and his party used the Sedition Act to send reporters, newspaper publishers, and even a Congressman critical of him, his political party, and his family to jail.

      When Jefferson became president, he repealed the Naturalization Act — the other acts expired in the early years of Jefferson’s presidency.

      HOW THE WHITE HOUSE BECAME THE WHITE HOUSE

      The story of the presidential mansions is an interesting one. The first president and his wife, George and Martha Washington, lived in two private houses consecutively in New York City, the country’s first capital. The two buildings they lived in were just called the Executive Mansion. George and Martha Washington lived in these two houses from 1789 until December of 1790, when the capital was temporarily moved to Philadelphia. Martha and her husband now rented a mansion owned by the wealthy merchant Robert Morris until 1797. This new residence was referred to as the President’s House. The residence in Philadelphia was supposed to be temporary until a new executive mansion could be built in the new capital of Washington, D.C. The new executive building was ready to be occupied by 1800 and then President John Adams moved in. After the building was finished, the sandstone walls were whitewashed giving the house its familiar white color. Quickly, people started calling the building informally the white house.

However, the name Executive Mansion became the official name until President Theodore Roosevelt changed the name to the White House in 1901.

      Moving to and hating Washington, D.C.

      In 1800, the new presidential building in the new capital of Washington, D.C., was ready, and Abigail had to make the move from Philadelphia. She oversaw the move from the president’s mansion in Philadelphia to the presidential mansion in Washington, D.C. She disliked the new and still unfinished building and hated the humidity in Washington, D.C., which aggravated her rheumatoid arthritis. In a letter Abigail refers to Washington, D.C., as one of the “very dirtiest hole I ever saw for a place of any trade or respectability of inhabitants.” She could not wait to leave Washington, D.C., and was not too upset that John lost reelection to Thomas Jefferson in 1800.

      Living out her life

      After John Adams’s term as president ended, the couple moved back to Quincy, Massachusetts, and lived there the next 17 years together.

      However, tragedy struck the Adams family repeatedly in the period from 1800 to 1817. Three of Abigail’s children died by 1817 and so did all of her sisters. In 1818, Abigail contracted typhoid fever at the age of 73. She died at home on October 28, a few weeks before her 74th birthday.

Abigail Adams was so beloved in Massachusetts that her pallbearers included the governor of Massachusetts and the president of Harvard University.