Abigail Adams PEC - PEC PDF

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SEGUNDA PRUEBA DE EVALUACIÓN CONTINUA MUNDOS ANGLOFONOS EN PERSPECTIVA HISTORICA Y CULTURAL ABIGAIL ADAMS “REMEMBER THE LADIES” LETTER (1) (1776)

HISTORICAL APPROACH CLASSIFIED

Based on the classification and the kind of document, the genre of this matter is a letter (2). Or Letter, Literary nonfiction. (3) AUTHOR

Abigail Adams (1744, was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts –1818 by typhoid fever) (4). She was the wife of second President of the United States (5) John Adams and the mother of John Quincy Adams, who became the sixth president of the United States. (6) Even she lacked a formal education, she taught herself how to read and maintained an extensive library. (7) AUDIENCE

In this case the letter was addressed to her husband who named John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) who was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States, from 1797 to 1801. (5) The reason that we have so many letters is because they spent so many years during their marriage away from one another.” The letters reveal a couple engaging each other on all matters, from the practical to the political, the intellectual to the emotional. John Adams was in his duty business of creating a new nation at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia (9) and after that he worked as a diplomat during the negotiations in Europe what led him took him away longer.

He was then appointed as a representative to the Continental Congress, as a passionate advocate of independence from Britain. In 1776, as a delegate to the Continental Congress, and he signed the Declaration of Independence. (10) GEOGRAPHICAL Place/city: In 1768 the family moved from Braintree to the big city of Boston.

The letter she wrote has the sentence: “Braintree March 31 1776” (11) CONTEXTUALIZATION

Background: Nearly 150 years before the House of Representatives voted to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, Adams letter was a private first step in the fight for equal rights for women. (12) There were important events in Abigail Adams life, as we can see; events such as the Boston Massacre (13) (in 1770 British soldiers killed demonstrators against the raised taxes). And the Boston Tea Party (14), (it was a political protest in 1773, Boston, American colonists dumped chests of tea, imported by the British East India Company into the harbour), occurred in the town where Abigail was living. On April 19, 1775 the American Revolutionary War began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord. (15)

PURPOSE

John Adams (1735-1826) and Abigail Smith Adams (1744-1818) exchanged over 1,100 letters, beginning during their courtship in 1762 and continuing throughout John's political career (until 1801). (16) How many letters did she wrote? In a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John Adams, urging him and the other members of the Continental Congress not to forget about the nation’s women when fighting for America’s independence from Great Britain. Recognized and admired as a formidable woman in her own right, the union of Abigail and John Adams persists as a model of mutual respect and affection; they have since been referred to as “America’s first power couple.” Their correspondence of 1,160 letters (17) written between 1762 and 1801 remains in the Massachusetts Historical Society and continues to give historians a unique perspective on domestic and political life during the revolutionary era. (16) The purpose in her plea for equal rights, Abigail Adams, a future first lady, wrote: “I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors”. (18)

She made to her husband a suggestion to remember…the strong words she used: an example: “...New code laws, unlimited power into their husbands, tyrants, be more generous than your ancestors...”….Otherwise she asked him in a cautionary tone that: “we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.” (12)

ANALYSE KEY WORDS: Ladies, remember, power, husbands, tyrants, rebellion. LETTER FEATURES

This letter belongs to the period Letters during Continental Congress, 1774 1777 (16). She goes direct to the point since from the first paragraph, and she uses many words which began as a capital letter to highlight the word. The letter has a formal tone although was addressed to her husband to called Friend, another example: Her last words were, "Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long. (18) HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In the American Revolution John Adams plays the role as a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress and became a principal leader of the Revolution. He assisted in drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and was its foremost advocate in Congress. (5) Hailed for her now-famous admonition that the Founding Fathers “remember the ladies” in their new laws, Abigail Adams was not only an early advocate for women's rights, she was a vital confidant and advisor to her husband John Adams, the nation's second president. She opposed slavery and supported women's education. (12)

CULTURAL APPROACH MOTIVATION

A Feminist Point of View? It is difficult to know exactly, but it is safe to say that Abigail was not a feminist in the contemporary sense, nor was she advocating women's suffrage, although many historians have ascribed that meaning to her words. Her letter, however, remains remarkable. Abigail was an outspoken, intelligent woman concerned with the state of her country and its citizens. Of particular interest to her was the status of women and its improvement within the domestic sphere. (19)

CONSEQUENCES

This is the answer that John Adams response to Abigail’s letter: “We dare not exert our Power in its full Latitude. We are obliged to go fair, and softly, and in Practice you know We are the subjects”. (20) Adams declined to adopt his wife’s proposed “extraordinary code of laws”. “We have,” he wrote back wryly, “only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope Gen. [George] Washington and all our brave heroes would fight.” Adams had strong feelings about marriage and believed women should take more part in decisions rather than simply serve their husbands. (22) One of Abigail Adams’s contributions was her oversight of the family’s move to the newly constructed presidential mansion in Washington, D.C. On New Year’s Day, 1801, she opened the mansion, later known as the White House, to visitors, continuing a tradition begun by the Washington’s and maintained by every subsequent first lady until 1933. (23) The Abigail Adams’s legacy is the interest in politics or the treatment of government leaders by the press. Although her approach to the office of first lady was in many ways advanced, her fame rests on her thousands of letters, which form an eloquent and evocative description of her life and times. (23)

CONCLUSION

In correspondence with her husband John as he and other leaders were framing a government for the United States, Abigail Adams argued that the laws of the new nation should recognize women as something more than property and protect them from the arbitrary and unrestrained power men held over them. (3) Abigail Adams’s grandson Charles Francis Adams concluded that she had played a significant role in the career of her husband, John Adams, particularly in managing the family farm and his business affairs. She was also known as an advocate of women’s rights, particularly the right to an education, and she favored the abolition of slavery. (23)

PERSONAL OPINION

In my opinion Abigail, was a rare woman, because at that time women were devoted only their husband and family, household chores, and she added a new task more, which is, be her husband advisor, that’s mean be informed about complicated issues of political, business… She remained a supportive spouse and confidante; (7) that she fell in one´s element, as her smart condition. In her letter the farewell was: ‘Your ever faithful Friend´ use friend to refer her husband instead of something like, always yours, your faithfully etc. (which implies belonging to someone).

I believe that Abigail intention, was refer to women/ladies just as all respect they deserve, with their own opinions and thoughts. An important question is: Why Abigail in her letter used the word ´ladies´ despite ´women´; the answer can be the next: In the Merriam Webster dictionary the concepts are radically different: Lady: a woman of refinement and gentle manners. Woman: distinctively feminine nature, an adult female person, a woman who is a servant or personal attendant... (24) In the book wrote by Prudence Allen which the title is “The concept of woman”, included Aristotle’s dictum:” The called ‘ladies’ although very few are found among them. A woman is an imperfect creature, excited by a thousand foul of passions, abominable even to remember, let alone to speak of. (25) Another review in the book of Robin Tolmach “Language and woman place”, Lakoff´s most important insights concerned the way women spoke and the disparate way woman and men were referred to a lady word. (26)

Finally, It seem to me very interesting to add the Abigail personality trough her handwriting. Although she had no formal education, from her voluminous writings (mostly in the form of letters to her husband, John), it’s clear Abigail Adams was highly intelligent, curious, engaged, insightful, and philosophical. I.e., she was a brilliant thinker, correspondent, confidante. She also had to take care of business back home while her husband was off doing political things. Mrs. Adams’s untidy, disconnected cursive (immortalized in our Abigail Adams font) was clearly dashed off in a hurry, which along with her creative spelling (not uncommon in those days) actually makes a lot of sense: here was someone with a message to get across, never mind insignificant details. Her hand suggests a doer, a talker, a communicator, one not so concerned about style as content. (27) BIBLIOGRAPHY: TEXTS: 1. Abigail Adams’ Letters. Remember the Ladies (solo la carta de A. Adams a John Adams). 1776. http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/165adams-rtl.html Dado por el equipo docente (base de trabajo) 2. http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/165adams-rtl.html 3. https://americainclass.org/abigail-adams-and-remember-the-ladies/ 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_Adams#Death 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams 6. https://www.biography.com/us-first-lady/abigail-adams 7. SOURCE: “FIRST FAMILY: ABIGAIL AND JOHN ADAMS,” BY JOSEPH J. ELLIS (2010)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/31/this-day-in-politics-march-31-1776-491169 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams (5) 9. https://www.wgbh.org/news/post/story-behind-abigail-adams-remember-ladies-letter 10. https://www.ushistory.org/declaration//signers/adams_s.html 11. https://www.ducksters.com/biography/women_leaders/abigail_adams.php 12. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/abigail-adams-urges-husband-to-rememberthe-ladies 13. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre 14. https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/boston-tea-party 15. https://www.ducksters.com/biography/women_leaders/abigail_adams.php 16. https://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/letter/ 17. www.politico.com › story › 2018/03/31 › this-day-in-poli. 18. en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Abigail_Adams 19. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/adams-remember-ladies/ 20. https://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/676 21. www.nps.gov › wori › learn › historyculture › abigail-ada... 22. https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/abigail-adams.htm 23. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Abigail-Adams 24. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lady?src=search-dict-box 25.https://books.google.es/books? id=SfnTRPSlvl0C&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=different+concept+ladies+women&source=bl&ots =FPXItBGhaV&sig=ACfU3U2gh2Tw77oNecyLMZ7hvCpahgRyzQ&hl=es&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiRt vnU8oXpAhXx0eAKHdDVAToQ6AEwD3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=different%20concept %20ladies%20women&f=false 26. https://books.google.es/books?id=7NdKhaWQfUC&pg=PA151&dq=concept+lady+woman&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2ucOw9oX pAhUoz4UKHYepAVQQ6AEISDAD#v=onepage&q=concept%20lady%20woman&f=false 27. https://www.oldfonts.com/antiquepenman/handwriting-and-personality/...