Abigail Adams

Abigail Adams was born in 1744 in Weymouth, Massachusetts, descending from the influential Quincy family. Adams had no formal education, but she was educated at home by her mother and by her family’s large library. In 1764, Adams married her third-cousin, John Adams, who would become the second President of the United States. Adams is remembered for the letters she wrote her husband during the Continental Congress, which discussed the political goings-on of the time. Adams took an active role as First Lady, and her ideas on government and women’s rights proved influential in her husband’s presidency. She died in 1818, at age 73, of typhoid fever.