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A Traveled First Lady
Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams
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Louisa Catherine Adams
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Edited by:
Margaret A. Hogan
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Preface by:
Laura Bush
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2014
About this book
Louisa Catherine Adams was daughter-in-law and wife of presidents, assisted diplomat J. Q. Adams at three European capitals, and served as a D.C. hostess for three decades. Yet she is barely remembered today. A Traveled First Lady (with Foreword by Laura Bush) corrects this oversight, by sharing Adams's remarkable story in her own words.
Author / Editor information
Hogan Margaret A. :
Margaret A. Hogan is an independent scholar and former editor of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.Taylor C. James :
C. James Taylor is Editor in Chief of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Reviews
Here's history at its best! Louisa Catherine Adams's shrewd eyewitness accounts document pivotal moments in the country's formative years. Often laugh-out-loud funny, the writings of this intelligent, insightful woman also provide fascinating context for the career of John Quincy and his contemporaries.
-- Cokie Roberts, author of Founding Mothers and Ladies of Liberty
-- Cokie Roberts, author of Founding Mothers and Ladies of Liberty
This graceful collection of the personal papers of Louisa Catherine Adams, the only first lady to have been foreign-born, is a treasure. Broad in scope but intimate in detail, Louisa’s account of her tour through the courts of Europe and the byways of accomplishment and loss that distinguished the Adams family shines and startles with wit and a woman’s heart wanting to freely ‘breathe its sorrows.’ Henry Adams would write he knew ‘nothing’ of his grandmother’s ‘interior life.’ Fortunate readers will know much more from her bracing words that bring early America to vivid life.
-- Natalie Dykstra, author of Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life
-- Natalie Dykstra, author of Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life
Highly readable…The book also features a delightful foreword by Laura Bush… ‘Narrative of a Journey from Russia to France,’ is the most hair-raising section in the entire collection…It is a story of unimaginable discomfort, absent-minded servants, questionable characters threatening in desolate places, impudent officials, weary soldiers, and filthy lodgings. Above all, it is the tale of a fragile, rugged, determined woman pulling off an adventure as daunting as those of the ragged soldiers she passed.
-- Janet Tassel American Spectator
-- Janet Tassel American Spectator
Allow[s] Louisa to emerge as a subject herself. In the process, she also becomes newly convincing as a source, especially in connection with her husband's complicated, grinding ambition, a quality she discerned beneath his cloak of rectitude.
-- Thomas Mallon New Yorker
-- Thomas Mallon New Yorker
A fine new sampling of Louisa’s writings…Louisa Adams was highly intelligent, well educated, and well read. She was a talented writer, as her diary and letters--most notably the correspondence she maintained with her father-in-law, after the death of his wife Abigail--reveal.
-- Susan Dunn New York Review of Books
-- Susan Dunn New York Review of Books
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
ix -
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Foreword
xi -
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Introduction
xv -
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Note to the Reader
xxiii -
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1. “All Was Joy and Peace and Love”: Youth
1 -
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2. “An Object of General Attention”: Prussia
34 -
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3. “Had I Steped into Noah’s Ark”: United States
86 -
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4. “The Savage Had Been Expected”: Russia
144 -
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5. “The Memory of One, Who Was”: St. Petersburg to Paris
187 -
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6. “The Wife of a Man of Superior Talents”: Washington, D.C., 1819–1820
216 -
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7. “I Am a Very Good Diplomate”: Washington, D.C., 1821–1824
265 -
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8. “This Apparent Fate”: Retirement
326 -
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Epilogue: Henry Adams on Louisa
362 -
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Chronology
367 -
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Acknowledgments
375 -
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Index
377
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
March 4, 2014
eBook ISBN:
9780674369276
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
416
Other:
34 color illustrations -- in 24pg 4/c insert
eBook ISBN:
9780674369276
Audience(s) for this book
General/trade;
