Declaring Independence Assignment
1. What are some of the key ideas of the letters between John and Abigail Adams?
The first idea is to remember the ladies. She states that men should not be given all the power. If the ladies are paid no attention it was bound to inspire a rebellion against this tyrant like behavior. If women have no voice, they will not be happy. If men need the title of master women will act differently than if they called themselves their wives’ friend. All these ideas are voiced in the letter she wrote. John expressed his ideas about women and how he thinks they should not vote in the new government. Both made valid points.
Reactions, Connections, Thoughts, Feelings:
I feel John Adams was not considerate
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I was also taken aback to how she states; your sex (Males) is naturally tyrannical. This is a truth so established that no one can dispute it. As far as John Adam’s response, all I can do is laugh at how he valued his manly hood more than his family or the more equal authority of women. Nowadays, he would never have pulled this response. He would have to fight to keep the reputation of a man versus a masculine pig. One connection is that in other revolutions after this the war things going on disrupted and corrupted the rule or mastership people had over subjects or slaves.
3. What other groups, besides women, does John Adams claim are demanding more freedoms from the government? What do these groups have in common with women? John Adams claimed that children and apprentices grew disobedient, schools and colleges became restless, Indians ignored elders, slaves grew disrespectful, and women grew discontent. All of these groups have no voice and unequal treatment in common. A connection is that women could not vote until relatively recently. That was man’s claim on control of how things were run. I honestly am appalled at what came out of his response as far as ,”subjection to the unfair rule of women.” Hypocrisy at its finest there because how do you think the women felt about subjection to the Despotism of the egotisticals? Yeah, probably not that great.
4. How do you think Abigail Adams felt when she read her husband's letter?
I think
This letter is a fine example of Abigail Adams' strong feminist and strong federalist views. These letters represented the turmoil felt by women during the uncertain times facing the colonies. The views of Abigail Adams became the first in a long line of cries out for women's equality.
Abigail Adams was a woman of high character and a loving soul. She was selfless in her thinking and remarkable in the way she handled people. Her management skills were above average for the normal female in the 1700s. She held many worldly interests that tied her to the political fashion of society. She was well cultured and was able to apply this to her role of a politician’s wife with great attributes towards society. She became the “buffer” with regard to her husband's temper and lack of diplomacy. She participated in many political activities. Her independent thinking, character, faithfulness, and hard work gave her the ability to succeed in society in the 17th century. Even though Abigail Adams was not formerly
The main point of this chapter was to showcase the religious, family-oriented background that Abigail was raised in. It explains why she is so focused on her family and John later in her life. It also explains her penname “Diana” and her love for literature and being involved in politics, after being taught to read at a young age.
As members of Congress drafted laws to guarantee the independence for which the colonies were fighting, Abigail wrote to John begging him to remember that women also needed to be given the right to independence. Her most famous letter about the need for women's rights was written to John on March 31, 1776:
With the marriage to John Adams, Abigail gained more than just a family and a husband she gained a greater independence for herself and for the women in the colonies. John Adams was a political man and devoted his life to politics. Abigail spent majority of her married years alone and raising a family by herself, with the help of family and servants. It was during these years that Abigail started writing a tremendous amount of letters. She wrote to family and friends but most importantly to her husband John. In the letters to her husband she was able to express her feelings about situations that were happening in the family and colonies. She wrote encouraging words that helped him through troubled times in politics. With the absence of her husband during her second pregnancy,
In this letter, Abigail talks about how women at the time had no representation as she said in her last words of the letter. Mrs. Adams went on to say Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could ”(Document 7).” She is referring to King George in this quote and is saying they are treating their women like King George treated the colonists. She is reminding them of the revolution and how radical it was in that sense but is contrasting this with how revolutionary it should have been for women. Needless to say, her letter went unanswered until years later when women’s suffrage finally had enough momentum be heard. It took all the way till 1920 for her letter to be answered in the form of women’s right to vote. If the men did not like how the king treated them how much more should they not act in the same manner towards women as the King did towards colonists? The slow and unanswered social dilemma shows just how conservative change was at this
In document 7 it said, “...in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you Remember the ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.” This document clearly indicates that before 1776 and even in that time period women did not have rights at all, and that is exactly what Abigail Adams asks John Adams in the letter. The idea that “unlimited power” was going into the husbands hand could not be suffered by women; that is what led to women's rights movements throughout United States. While the rights gained for women was one of the radical change, there were various
In “Address to Congress on Women’s Suffrage,” women’s suffrage is recognized. Carrie Chapman is giving a speech to men stating that suffrage is inevitable. She illuminates three main points that develop her theme. First, the history of the country, second, the suffrage for women already established in the US already makes suffrage of the nation inevitable, and third, leadership of the US democracy compels enfranchisement of their women. For the first point, the text states, “The American Revolutionists boldly proclaimed the heresies : “Taxation without
The relationship between John and Abigail Adams is one which holds great significance, not only in the nature of the relationship, but in the way they spoke to each other with written words. Historians have extensively studied the relationship between the young lawyer who accomplished great things and the outstanding and independent woman that became the most “articulate and influential women” during the revolutionary era. Before we are able to understand how these two love birds wrote their correspondence letters, we have to gain some insight into whom they were and how they became the people were.
Susan B. Anthony: A Biography of a Singular Feminist claims that Abigail Adams warned her husband John Adams that “if particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a Rebellion,” she was right. In 1848 was when the fight for women’s rights was really put into action, when a group of women gathered together in New York to discuss gaining the rights that they wanted. Elizabeth Cady and Lucretia Mott were among the first to put their needs for rights into actions as the leaders of the meeting they felt as if they deserved the same rights as men especially the right to vote. During this meeting the group of women created the Declaration of Sentiments, signed by 68 women and 32 men, this document was inspired by the Declaration of Independence. This document expressed their want for equal rights for all stating that “all men AND women are created equal.” Once this document had been released to the public, is when talk of women suffrage really blew up
Imagine a woman who is smart, strong, assertive, and knows how to get what she wants: a real-life Hermione Granger. That woman is Abigail Adams. First lady of our country, wife of John Adams, and mother of five, Abigail had a lot to deal with. Concurrently, she was running the house and giving up luxuries to help her country which was in debt. She also acted as a political partner to John, advocated for women’s rights and education, and used her femininity to her advantage even though she was in a patriarchal society. While Abigail Adams did not spark an immediate change in her era, she demonstrated that one can be a feminist without completely abandoning gender expectations.
In 1848, Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized a women’s rights convention. The convention was held to address the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women. The first day meeting began with women exclusively invited, the second day was held for the public which included men. Elizabeth wrote the Declaration of Sentiments which is a disquisition about women’s right and their role in society. In the SENECA FALLS WOMEN’S RIGHTS CONVENTION, the author emphasizes the importance of women’s participation in leadership roles in society. By mimicking the Declaration of Independence Stanton was able to speak amongst many who were concerned about equality with men before the law, in education, and employment. During the 18th century,
Before, advocates for women’s rights were private and subdued, like Abigail Adams and her exchange of letters with her husband John Adams in 1776. She subtly requests her husband to “remember the ladies”, pushing for moderate expansion of rights and the bettered treatment for women, in which her husband replied with gentle disparagement. Although Adams’ pursuit was commendable, equality for women was incomplete, as after the Revolution, its government did little to change the legal customs that restricted women’s independence. In the 18th century, ideas like “Republican motherhood” which asserted women to only educate and guide their children, and “cult of domesticity” which stressed that women’s place was in the home, placed women in a distinct, separate sphere as homemakers, moral compasses, and overall, slaves to the patriarchy. There were more beliefs of reaffirming man’s dominance over woman and people compliant to these ideas, then there were critics of inequality. The Declaration of Sentiments was the opposite of such notions. Publicizing the outcry for women’s rights was the beginning of the women's suffrage movement in the 19th
A few months before he was born, people from the colonies saw their independence approaching and thought it was time to start “drafting a new framework for a national government” (Hollitz 79). John Adams was a “member of the Second Continental Congress”, which meant that he participated in drafting the Articles of Confederation (Hollitz 79). So Abigail Adams (his wife) wrote to him about including women rights in the Confederation. Even though she took this seriously, he didn’t and saw it as a good sense of humor. This was important to my grandfather, because it was important to his mother. He believed that even though women aren’t capable of doing of the same duties as men (such as hard labor), they do have other things they could
A big social class that encouraged the revolution were the Women. The women at the time did not have a say in the government and were not given equal rights as the men were. In a letter written by Mary Wollstonecraft she states “If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the love of mankind, from which an orderly strain of virtues spring, can only be produced by considering the moral and civil interest of mankind; but the education and situation of woman, at present, shuts her out from such investigations.” Mary is explaining that how