Abigail Adams Book Report

Charles W . Akers

Abigail Adams : A Revolutionary American Woman

Pearson Education , New York 2006

Table of Contents

Table of Contents .1

Abigail Adams : A Revolutionary American Woman .2

Abigail Adams : A Revolutionary American Woman

This book by Charles Akers is based on Abigail Smith Adams who was the wife of John Adams , the second President of the United States . Today she is remembered via the many letters she wrote to her husband while he stayed in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania during the Continental Congress . As John Adams frequently sought the

advice of his wife on important social and political matters , these letters are rife with intellectual discussions on government and politics of that era . Akers has compiled the life story of Abigail Adams in an innovative way : through the vivid legacy of her letters , placing this information into the form of a biography , but has refrained from directly quoting the letters line by line . In this way , he has done an excellent job of presenting a story to his readers as perceived by the First Lady . This communication was vivid and written in an eloquent manner , describing the daily life of a family during revolutionary Colonial times

This book reminds us that while the women 's rights movement might have truly gained popularity much later , Abigail Adams was the first to speak up for women 's rights and her famous words to her husband , to remember the ladies ' while formulating policies as president , have been oft-quoted . In this book , Akers succeeds in telling his readers how Adams did not just settle for being a politician 's wife , but became one of the earliest voices of revolution among women . The author has also succeeding in bringing to the forefront through this biography important issues about the revolution and how Adams viewed its causes and consequences

Akers takes us on the journey of what it meant to be a woman , an American and a revolutionary in this time of transition between colonialism and independence through the eyes of Abigail Adams . She did not aspire to be like her seventeenth century ancestors and neither did she aim for the modernity of her nineteenth- and twentieth-century descendants . She knew that as a woman , the role that she wanted to carve out for herself would be predominantly that of a wife , but she wanted that role to equal that of her husband 's - not be the same , but be equal

One of her most famous correspondences was in a letter she wrote to her husband in 1776 , saying .in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies , and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors ' At this time in U .S . history , women were routinely excluded from the political process as there was a general distrust of the female capacity to take politics seriously . Hence , this admonition , by a woman , declaring that ladies should be remembered in the...