But few know of the equally strong bond Abigail shared with her sisters, Mary Cranch and Elizabeth Shaw Peabody, accomplished women in their own right.
Much has been written about the enduring marriage of President John Adams and his wife, Abigail. “Never sisters loved each other better than we.”-Abigail Adams in a letter to her sister Mary, June 1776 Massie, David McCulough, and Alison Weir comes the first biography on the life of Abigail Adams and her sisters. Jacobs uses the sisters' letters to show the women circumventing cultural restrictions in order to assert their influence within and beyond their domestic spheres.For readers of the historical works of Robert K. Letter writing for these self-sacrificing and resilient sisters offered opportunities for sharing family news but also provided an essential forum with like-minded, trusted, supportive females, allowing them a brief respite from mundane yet stressful domesticity. Jacobs makes evident the intense familial bond they had with one another, their spouses, and children as they endured grave illness, isolation, financial hardship, and the frustration of being thinking women in a man's world where intelligent, educated women were discouraged from engaging in substantive communication on nondomestic issues. They shared private thoughts on everything from courtship, marriage, and child rearing to philosophical, economic, and political issues. Jacobs bases her study on their lifelong correspondence. Among the many biographies-and collections of the letters-of Abigail Smith Adams, this one by Jacobs ( Her Own Woman: The Life of Mary Wollstonecraft) uniquely focuses on the interconnectedness of Adams with her sisters, Mary Smith Cranch and Elizabeth "Betsy" Smith Shaw Peabody.
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