Portia: The World of Abigail Adams

While many other authors have tried to use Abigail Adams to serve their own intellectual or political purposes, Edith Gelles wants to recover Adams as herself. Gelles shows us the ways that Abigail embraced the social roles of her time and place while using her epistolary vocation to express herself in ways that pushed some of those boundaries. Like other women of her time, she defined herself in terms of domesticity, though John’s absences forced her to develop management and business skills to provide for the household. She knew that women were not supposed to discuss politics, but given her family’s political careers her letters often include political discussions with the socially-appropriate apologies for talking about such things. Business and politics forced her to think and act outside the purely private sphere where women were supposed to remain, and so the public world of men intrudes on the domestic life she had expected to leave.Gelles makes the decision to avoid chronology in favor of exploring a different theme in each chapter, such as “gossip,” or her role as sister or mother, or her intriguing relationships with James Lovell and Thomas Jefferson. That decision works well, and it allows Gelles to draw on different disciplines to develop these themes. At the same time, the decision weakens the thematic unity of the book itself, and it often obscures the temporal relationships among events–especially in the last chapter, where Abigail faces the deaths of many friends and family within a short period, a chapter that highlights stresses not evident in early chapters mentioning the same people.As she must, Gelles relies on Abigail Adams’ own letters in telling the story. People write letters as part of a relationship, so this portrait inevitably sees Adams in terms of her relationships. Because Americans have always seen her in terms of her relationships with the many powerful men in her family, highlighting her relationships with her sisters and daughter helps round out the story. That said, it remains difficult to see Abigail Adams as herself, outside any relationship at all.All in all, the book succeeds admirably in its purposes. Gelles’ scholarly perspective, references to academic terms and literatures, and Adams’ eighteenth-century language all mean that it isn’t intended for the “general reader,” which keeps it from earning five stars from me. People who read the academic histories that appear in book clubs, however, will probably find it worthy of that last star.

Gelles presents for us Abigail Adams in a new light...the domestic woman. By telling her story thematically (one chapter devoted to her and her sisters, one devoted to her daughter and Abigail jrs fight with breast cancer) we meet a new Abigail...one who is not weighed down by proto-feminist thought, nor is she trying to dominate the home. Abigail was an unusual woman in a few ways, but keep in mind that she kept a family togehter by herself for the many years when John Adams was in Philadephia or England or France. She acted within social norms as a "deputy husband" (to use the language of the times). Although at times I question if Gelles isn't slightly underestimating the second first lady of the US...she presents a new counterpoint to the large body of Abigail Adams scholarship out there. For those scholars of Abigail Adams, her first chapter basically presents in a historiographical manner the various types of Abigail scholarship out there, offering a critique of many of the well-known authors. It is a bit dry at times, but is not at all painful to read.

it was used and it very good quality. true to label

I think Abigail Adams is one the greatest and most interesting women in American history.This book gives us a picture of her as a young woman, as the wife and confidant of John, as a mother, as a manager of farms and homes, and as a friend to many.It also gives us a window into her life as a woman with a rich and interesting life of the mind and the heart.A great read!