Abigail Adams: “Remember the Ladies” Letter to John Adams

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Did Abigail Adams mean for her “remember the ladies” comment to be the primary reason she wrote to her husband, or was that more of an afterthought?
• 2. A letter like those Abigail and John Adams wrote to each other could travel only as fast as a horse and rider could carry it. It could take more than a week for a letter like this one to get from Abigail to her husband. What evidence in the letter is there of the slow rate of communication? How might this have affected the progress of the Revolution?
• 3. Abigail mentions the smallpox that had plagued Boston intermittently since the summer of 1774. In July of 1776, about a week after the Declaration of Independence was presented to Congress, she took her children to a physician and received an inoculation. Why was smallpox (and its treatment) so feared?