萨拉·乔治尼，亚当斯文件

你什么时候第一次听到 约翰和阿比盖尔·亚当斯夫妇的信件? Fashionable Bostonians could pin their first memory to an exact spot. Shortly after lunchtime on a January afternoon in 1838, two hundred curious guests swarmed into the Masonic Grand Lodge downtown. 他们冒着严寒前来聆听 查尔斯·弗朗西斯·亚当斯 (1807–1886), son and grandson of presidents, tell all about his famous family. He felt ready, even eager, to air a few memories. 一个月前, Charles had begun work on his lecture at the special request of the 马萨诸塞州历史学会, 在镇上举办了一系列的讲座. A studious researcher and a curator of the family archive, Charles wanted to share 阿比盖尔的人生故事 有更多的观众. 他问父亲: 约翰·昆西, for permission to narrate the private manuscripts in public. “My intention would be to use such of my grandmother’s letters most especially as would illustrate the female character of the age of the Revolution,查尔斯写道. “Of course, the selection must depend upon my discretion and there would be no publication.” When the query reached him, the senior 亚当斯 had retrenched in public service. He sent a hasty reply: “Use all the papers at your pleasure.查尔斯一头扎进了这个项目. 下面是她孙子的选择 记得阿比盖尔.

查尔斯是一个系统的读者. Back at the family farm in Quincy, the papers overflowed with love letters and state secrets. He plodded through the stacks, more or less chronologically. In constructing a narrative for his lecture, Charles stuck to the basic timeline of the Revolution. 他的第一个选择是 9月8日. 1774年信 从约翰到亚比该. The Massachusetts delegate wrote hurriedly from the Continental Congress: “It would fill Volumes, to give you an Idea of the scenes I behold and the Characters I converse with. 我们有很多生意要做, 这么多仪式, 如此多的公司, 接待和回访如此之多, 我没有时间写. And the Times are such, as render it imprudent to write freely.在他的讲稿中, Charles summarized what happened next in that chain of correspondence: how 约翰·亚当斯 compared the Anglo-American politics of the day to those of Julius Caesar; how the Harvard-trained lawyer quoted 莎士比亚的台词 on the “shallows” of bravery; how John often addressed Abigail as “波西亚.” Charles stressed that John cherished his wife as a confidante and adviser.

进入阿比盖尔. 在她死后二十年, the second First Lady commanded Boston’s biggest stage and reclaimed the nation’s imagination. The first Abigail letter that Charles read was sent to John, 1775年5月24日，预示着战争的鼓声. “我希望你离我们更近一些. 一日要生何事，我们不知道, nor what distress one hour may throw us into,阿比盖尔写道. “Heitherto I have been able to mantain a calmness and presence of Mind, 希望我能, let the Exigency of the time be what they will.“小心, Charles reconstructed 阿比盖尔·亚当斯 as an emblem of republic motherhood, a woman who raised her children to guard and grow the nation. In his selection of manuscripts and public remarks, Charles sharply reoriented the 亚当斯 family’s political brand around Abigail’s legacy. Appealing to early Victorian views on Christian nurture, he emphasized that women’s domestic influence fueled the 美国革命. 比如“光到钻石”,” moral virtue gave to the “political character of a nation all its lustre and its value,查尔斯写道. Women like his grandmother were blessed and burdened to provide it.

阿比盖尔·亚当斯的性格令查尔斯着迷, and he shared that awe with his audience for at least two hours. He wondered aloud: How did she balance private emotion and public duty? And what  might studying other women’s lives reveal to Americans about the “revolutionary spirit”? 他没有包括她对“记住女士们,” but he certainly kept her message intact. Thanks to Abigail’s canon, Charles glimpsed a new field for citizens and scholars to explore. “All of the leading actors in the revolutionary drama had mothers or wives or intimate friends with whom they indulged in the expression of their genuine, 纯粹的感情,查尔斯说. “And yet when we take a glance over what is now known to exist upon record of them, where do we find anything even tolerably satisfactory to reward our search?” At the first public reading of the 亚当斯的论文, 查尔斯·弗朗西斯·亚当斯 neatly laid out many of the editorial challenges and opportunities that we face today as an 编辑项目. And his initial encounter with family history encouraged him, 作为一名编辑, to learn how to think between the documents. Sometimes his opinions and ideas manifested on the page, when he silently omitted or even “corrected” his grandparents’ words. 然而查理是第一个这么做的人 施加有意义的秩序 在档案中. 他还承担了……的任务 建造总统图书馆 on Peacefield的 多叶的理由.

Did the crowd of 1838 lean forward a little bit more as they listened in on Abigail and John? Charles repeated his lecture to several keen audiences, 松了一口气，他的“实验” 很受欢迎. Heartened by his hard-won popularity as a man of letters, he began compiling a popular edition of Abigail’s correspondence. With a few tweaks, he repurposed his 马萨诸塞州历史学会 talk for use in the 介绍性的回忆录. He reminded readers that Abigail’s letters offered a backstage pass to revolutionary drama, and that Americans would benefit from her story. For Charles, remembering Abigail held “double charms…painted by the hand of truth.”