History Comes Alive - Abigail Adams

Sponsored by America250PA and the Charles Knox & Margaret Etner Foundation

In her many letters to her husband and friends Abigail Adams expressed the concerns and accomplishments of an early American patriotic woman. Her most famous request was for Congress to “Remember the ladies” in the creation of the Constitution of the United States. It was her clear understanding that women’s influences in the domestic sphere were as integral to the development of a new nation as the the more public efforts of the founding fathers. Family economics, children’s education and civic responsibility, are the primary concerns of Abigail Adams. Her requests for legislation to benefit future generations included the necessity of education for all children regardless of sex or color, as well as the right to self-determination for all individuals including the emancipation of slaves and granting wives equal status under the law. An understanding of her hopes for…