Abigail Adams

Born in Weymouth, Massachusetts, she married John Adams in 1764. In ten years she bore three sons and two daughters, including another President, John Quincy Adams. Abigail Adams is remembered today for the many letters she wrote to her husband while he served his country in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, during the Continental Congresses and the Constitutional Convention. Passages from those letters figured prominently in the Broadway musical 1776 (and the 1972 film of it, with Virginia Vestoff as Abigail Adams).

She is perhaps best known for her request that he and the Continental Congress "remember the ladies" -- that they consider the needs and rights of women as well as of men in forming the new country.

Links:

• A more detailed profile of her:http://www.umkc.edu/imc/adamsa.htm

Phyllis Lee Levin wrote Abigail Adams: A Biography (©1987).