Abigail Adams Correspondence
Scope and Contents
Of the 22 letters in this collection, 20 are addressed to John Thaxter in which Abigail Adams writes about the war-time economy, the changing attitudes of American women, and the importance of public service. Other subjects include her management of the family farm, her husband’s absence, and her impressions of people such as General Burgoyne and events such as the siege of Newport.
Dates
- 1770-1785
- Other: Date acquired: 05/18/1944
Creator
- Adams, Abigail (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
The collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Items in this collection may be subject to copyright restrictions. In most cases, the Boston Public Library does not hold the copyright to the items in our collections. It is the sole responsibility of the user to make their own determination about what types of usage might be permissible under U.S. and international copyright law.
Extent
22.00 Items
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
Letters to John Thaxter are arranged chronologically.
Source of Acquisition
F.G. Sweet
Method of Acquisition
Purchase
Accruals
Isacc Smith letter purchased from Goodspeed's Book Store in March, 1953. Original call number was Mss. Acc. 349.
Elbridge Gerry letter was purchased from F.G. Sweet in July, 1947. Original call number was Mss. Acc. 348.
Processing Information
Finding aid written by Rare Books and Manuscripts staff.
Processing Information
This electronic finding aid is transcribed from legacy data. In many cases, transcriptions were not verified against collection materials at the time of transcription. As a result, this finding aid could be incomplete and might only reflect a partial understanding of the material.
Statement on harmful description
Archival description reflects the biases of time periods and cultures in which it was created and may include direct quotations or descriptions that use inappropriate or harmful language. Creator provided descriptions may be maintained in order to preserve the context in which the collection was created and/or used. Legacy description and potentially offensive content may be made available online until a collection can be reprocessed because the access that they provide to primary source materials is uniquely valuable to the research community at large. Our efforts to repair outdated descriptions and to describe our collections more equitably are iterative and ongoing.
- Adams, Abigail, 1744-1818 -- Correspondence
- Letters. Subject Source: Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing
- Manuscripts. Subject Source: Genre Terms: A Thesaurus for Use in Rare Book and Special Collections Cataloguing
- Presidents' spouses -- United States -- correspondence Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Thaxter, John, Jr., 1755-1791.
- Women -- United States -- 18th century Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Title
- Abigail Adams Correspondence
- Author
- Rare Books and Manuscripts Department staff
- Date
- 12/01/2012
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 2012: Updated by Kimberly Reynolds, 2012.
About this library
Part of the Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections Repository
