2.  What can be learned by examining the Adams Papers about Revolutionary society?  Does Abigail Adams offer an accurate perspective of society?  What concerns of the people are visible through the Adams letters?  What new perspective, if any, is gained about Revolutionary American society?  Do these accounts of the war offer a new way to examine and understand the Revolutionary War Era?

3.  Abigail’s life, like many others of her time, was literally turned upside down due to the War, the absence of her husband, and the new roles she obtained through it. Abigail's letters offer a window by which we are able to view and grasp the hidden world of Colonial America during the Revolutionary War, as she wrote them and reported dutifully from the forefront.

4.  3 sources by Edith B. Gelles, one of the leading historians on Abigail Adams › “Domesticity and the American Revolution” › First Thoughts: Life and Letters of Abigail Adams › Portia: The World of Abigail Adams  Charles W. Akers – Abigail Adams: An American Woman  L.H. Butterfield – The Book of Abigail and John  Woody Holton – Abigail Adams

5.  40 letters written between Abigail and John Adams  March 1775-August 1777

6.  As I was reading the letters, I determined the roles by which I was going to view Abigail in… › The Mother › The Provider and Breadwinner › The Concerned Colonist  I transcribed the roles that she found herself in to the general public to gain information about and understand the life of those living in this era.

7.  By viewing the Adams letters and Abigail Adams, we are able to get a sense of what life was like from many different perspectives during Revolutionary America.

8.  Small pox and other diseases were fresh on the minds of the colonists › Inoculation was just coming about  Fear of the safety of children and loved ones

9.  Inflation of prices  Lack of goods and their availability  Constant worry about the obtainment of money  How do I make a living and provide for my family, when the “breadwinner” of the family has been stolen by war?

10.  Detailed recordings of the troops in Boston, the conditions they faced, their movements, etc.  Offers her opinion about the War to John › Her views on an American independence and the rights that will come along with this are evident.

11. From the correspondence…  We gain a clearer understanding of what it was like to live during the Revolutionary War  Abigail viewed her new roles as her patriotic duty to the war and took them seriously  The roles she was cast in, are roles that others during her time also had, and her feelings can be transcribed onto them  Life, during the Revolutionary War, was extremely hard, not only for Abigail, but for others who were cast in the very same roles