The Adams Women: Abigail and Louisa Adams, Their Sisters and Daughters - Hardcover

Nagel, Paul C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195038746 ISBN 13: 9780195038743

Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr, 1987

Synopsis

Paul Nagel's Descent from Glory was an extraordinary critical and popular success, a Book-of-the-Month Club main selection hailed by reviewers as "magnificent" (The New York Times Book Review) and "splendid" (The Christian Science Monitor). That book focused on the men in the Adams family, but many readers--and Nagel himself--felt that the most interesting and stirring part of the Adams family saga was the story of the women. Here at last is the book many readers urged Nagel to write: the full story of some of the most interesting and important and articulate women in American history. This is no mere sequel to the first book; it is an attempt to do justice in their own right to some extraordinary individuals in their own right who happened to be women and whose personal lives and outlooks have been eclipsed by the famous men who surrounded them.
Nagel portrays his subjects as they saw themselves and each other. This is possible because of the abundant comment and confession they shared with each other, much of it surviving in the Adams Papers. They spoke to one another about their existence with a frankness and detail which is unmatched in American historical sources. We find them in the joy, sorrow, dreariness, and peril which came to females of that era, no matter who they were. Thus this intimate and candid portrait may be our nearest approach to how American females actally lived and thought between 1750 and 1850.

About this title

About the Author

About the Author:
Paul C. Nagel is Distinguished Lee Scholar for the R. E. Lee Memorial Association. Formerly Director of the Virginia Historical Society, he is the author of many books, includingDescent from Glory,

Reviews

Having written about the presidential Adamses in Descent from Glory, Nagel now focuses on the women, who, although hampered by societal strictures, often equalled and sometimes surpassed (albeit less publicly) the acumen and talents of even the most illustrious Adams men. In resurrecting them, the historian pays fitting tribute to these women, immersing us in their domestic concerns and marital relationships so totally that we feel a confidant's intimacy and unabashed admiration: for first ladies Abigail, the managing matriarch, and sorely-tried Louisa, wives of John and John Quincy; Abigail's sisters Mary, community do-gooder, and parson's wife Elizabeth; Abigail's benighted daughter Nabby; and the many other fecund Adamses who produced a dynasty. The scenes shift from the family seat in Quincy, Mass., to the nation's capital and other U.S. locales, abroad to England and Russia. The lives of the Adams women, aristocrats of the spirit, were tested by priggish, boorish husbands, offspring and brothers who died of alcoholism and an era that would not acknowledge their quality. Yet first lady Louisa's motto found expression in virtually each: "Under all circumstances we must never desert ourselves." Photos not seen by PW. (September
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Nagel portrayed four generations of Adams men in Descent from Glory. Here the historian examines Adams women. At the heart of this book, in its most accomplished portions, are the chapters revealing the relationship between the three Smith sisters, Abigail, Mary, and Elizabeth. Abigail's well-known, forceful, and forward-looking opinions about women's equality shaped her sisters' lives as well as her own and were echoed in the beliefs and actions of Adams women who followed her. Nagel makes a completely new contribution with brief discussions of Abby Brown Brooks, the wife of Charles Francis Adams, and others. Collections supporting the study of the Adamses, of early American social history, and of women's studies generally will want this. Susan E. Parker, Harvard Law Sch. Lib., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195038746
• ISBN 13: 9780195038743
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 324