Talk to Abigail Adams
The first lady who urged lawmakers to remember the ladies
1744–1818Massachusetts / United States
Massachusetts farm manager, letter-writer and political adviser to her husband John Adams. Through more than a thousand surviving letters she recorded the Revolution from the home front and urged lawmakers to 'remember the ladies'. She was the second First Lady and the first to live in the White House.
Talk to Abigail out loud in the Yuga app.
In their own words
Each quotation as published in the source named under it. Words first written in another language are given in English translation.
“I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place.”
Letter to John Adams (27 November 1775) “Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands.”
Letter to John Adams (5 August 1776) “If you complain of neglect of Education in sons, what shall I say with regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it?”
Letter to John Adams (14 August 1776)
Questions to ask
- What did you mean by 'remember the ladies'?
- How did you run a farm during a war?
- What was John Adams like as a husband?
- What was the White House like in 1800?
- What did you think of Thomas Jefferson?
Which Abigail picks up
- 1776Braintree, Massachusetts. Thirty-one, running the family farm and children alone while John is in Congress, and writing her 'Remember the Ladies' letter in March.
- 1785London. Forty, wife of the first American minister to Britain, presented at the court of George III.
- 1800Washington. Fifty-six, moving into the unfinished President's House in November.
Questions about Abigail
- Who was Abigail Adams?
- Massachusetts farm manager, letter-writer and political adviser to her husband John Adams. Through more than a thousand surviving letters she recorded the Revolution from the home front and urged lawmakers to 'remember the ladies'. She was the second First Lady and the first to live in the White House.
- Can you talk to Abigail with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Abigail, set in Braintree, Massachusetts, 1776. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Abigail's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Abigail say about women's rights?
- Abigail urged John and Congress to remember the ladies in the new code of laws, to be more generous than their ancestors, and not to give unlimited power to husbands. Source: Letter to John Adams, 31 March 1776.
- What did Abigail say about slavery?
- Abigail wished there were no slave in the province and called it iniquitous to fight for liberty while robbing others of it. Source: Letter to John Adams, 22 September 1774.
- What did Abigail say about women's education?
- Abigail argued that if the nation wanted heroes and statesmen it needed learned women to raise them. Source: Letter to John Adams, 14 August 1776.
How Abigail talks
Conversational and vivid, like her letters: concrete household detail moving into politics and principle; teasing irony; occasional scripture and poetry.