Author: Margery M. Heffron
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300206909
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 557
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Book Description
“Spiced with sexual mischief, political conflict and family tragedy . . . Her biography is nothing less than captivating, an engrossing read.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, wife and political partner of John Quincy Adams, became one of the most widely known women in America when her husband assumed office as sixth president in 1825. Shrewd, intellectual, and articulate, she was close to the center of American power over many decades, and extensive archives reveal her as an unparalleled observer of the politics, personalities, and issues of her day. Louisa left behind a trove of journals, essays, letters, and other writings, yet no biographer has mined these riches until now. Margery Heffron brings Louisa out of the shadows at last to offer the first full and nuanced portrait of an extraordinary first lady. The book begins with Louisa’s early life in London and Nantes, France, then details her excruciatingly awkward courtship and engagement to John Quincy, her famous diplomatic success in tsarist Russia, her life as a mother, years abroad as the wife of a distinguished diplomat, and finally the Washington, D.C., era when, as a legendary hostess, she made no small contribution to her husband’s successful bid for the White House. Louisa’s sharp insights as a tireless recorder provide a fresh view of early American democratic society, presidential politics and elections, and indeed every important political and social issue of her time. “[A] sparkling biography . . . [A] fascinating, if partial, portrait of an exceptional woman.”—The New York Times Book Review (cover review) “Superb . . . Heffron is a spirited, elegant writer.”—Open Letters Monthly
Author: Louisa Catherine Adams
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674369270
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 439
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Book Description
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: Jack Shepherd
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
ISBN: 9780070567306
Category : Presidents
Languages : en
Pages : 440
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Book Description
Author: Paul C. Nagel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674004108
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
Examines the women of the Adams family including Abigail and Louisa Adams, their sisters, and daughters, and describes how they lived and thought in the years between 1750 and 1850.
Author: Catherine Louisa Pirkis
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0359065902
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
""It's a big thing,"" said Loveday Brooke, addressing Ebenezer Dyer, chief of the well-known detective agency in Lynch Court, Fleet Street; ""Lady Cathrow has lost £30,000 worth of jewellery, if the newspaper accounts are to be trusted."" ""They are fairly accurate this time. The robbery differs in few respects from the usual run of country-house robberies. The time chosen, of course, was the dinner-hour, when the family and guests were at table and the servants not on duty were amusing themselves in their own quarters. The fact of its being Christmas Eve would also of necessity add to the business and consequent distraction of the household. The entry to the house, however, in this case was not effected in the usual manner by a ladder to the dressing-room window, but through the window of a room on the ground floor - a small room with one window and two doors, one of which opens into the hall, and the other into a passage that leads by the back stairs to the bedroom floor....""
Author: Jane Hampton Cook
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 1595555420
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512
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Book Description
John Quincy and Louisa Adams’s unexpected journey that changed everything. American Phoenix is the sweeping, riveting tale of a grand historic adventure across forbidding oceans and frozen tundra—from the bustling ports and towering birches of Boston to the remote reaches of pre-Soviet Russia, from an exile in arctic St. Petersburg to resurrection and reunion among the gardens of Paris. Upon these varied landscapes this Adams and his Eve must find a way to transform their banishment into America’s salvation. Author, historian, and national media commentator Jane Hampton Cook breathes life into once-obscure history, weaving a meticulously researched biographical tapestry that reads like a gripping novel. With the arc and intrigue of Shakespearean drama in a Jane Austen era, American Phoenix is a timely yet timeless addition to the recent renaissance of works on the founding Adams family, from patriarchs John and Abigail to the second-generation of John Quincy and Louisa and beyond. Cook has crafted not only a riveting narrative but also an easy-to-understand history filled with fly-on-the-wall vignettes from 1812 and its hardscrabble, freedom-hungry people. While unveiling vivid portrayals of each character—a colorful assortment of heroes and villains, patriots and pirates, rogues and rabble-rousers—she paints equally fresh, intimate portraits of both John Quincy and Louisa Adams. Cook artfully reveals John Quincy’s devastation after losing the job of his dreams, battle for America’s need to thrive economically, and sojourn to secure his homeland’s survival as a sovereign nation. She reserves her most detailed brushstrokes for the inner struggles of Louisa, using this quietly inspirational woman’s own words to amplify her fears, faith, and fortitude along a deeply personal, often heart-rending journey. Cook’s close-up perspective shows how this American couple’s Russian destination changed US destiny.
Author: Catherine Allgor
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 9780813921181
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
In the days before organized political parties, the social machine built by these early federal women helped to ease the transition from a failed republican experiment to a burgeoning democracy.
Author: Louisa Catherine Adams
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674369289
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 437
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Book Description
Congress adjourned on 18 May 1852 for Louisa Catherine Adams’s funeral, according her an honor never before offered a first lady. But her life and influence merited this extraordinary tribute. She had been first the daughter-in-law and then the wife of a president. She had assisted her husband as a diplomat at three of the major capitals of Europe. She had served as a leading hostess and significant figure in Washington for three decades. And yet, a century and a half later, she is barely remembered. A Traveled First Lady: Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams seeks to correct that oversight by sharing Adams’s remarkable experiences in her own words. These excerpts from diaries and memoirs recount her early years in London and Paris (to this day she is the only foreign-born first lady), her courtship and marriage to John Quincy Adams, her time in the lavish courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg as a diplomat’s wife, and her years aiding John Quincy’s political career in Washington. Emotional, critical, witty, and, in the Adams tradition, always frank, her writings draw sharp portraits of people from every station, both servants and members of the imperial court, and deliver clear, well-informed opinions about the major issues of her day. Telling the story of her own life, juxtaposed with rich descriptions of European courts, Washington political maneuvers, and the continuing Adams family drama, Louisa Catherine Adams demonstrates why she was once considered one of the preeminent women of the nineteenth century.
Author: Andrew Oliver
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674691520
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
This volume affords a visual documentation of the most varied political career in American history and exemplifies the work of the principal American portraitists from the days of Copley and Stuart to the dawn of the Daguerrean era. Included in the 159 illustrations are all the known life portraits, busts, and silhouettes of John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams, along with important replicas, copies, engravings, and representative likenesses of their siblings. The book is organized into seven chapters which generally coincide with the major divisions of John Quincy Adams' political career. Within each chapter are discussed the artists, their relationships with the Adams's, and the provenance of each of their works. A chronology of John Quincy Adams' life for each period accompanies the chapter to which it pertains. Information about the size of each likeness, the inscriptions if any, the date executed, and present ownership where known is summarized in the List of Illustrations. The Adams's, as they watched themselves age over the years in the marble, ink, or oil of the artists who portrayed them, recorded much by way of commentary on the artistic talent and process at hand. The author makes use of the diaries and correspondence preserved in the Adams Papers, thus combining a learned appreciation with an intimate glimpse of Adams's as they saw themselves.
Author: Eve LaPlante
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451620675
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 384
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Book Description
Originally published: New York: Free Press, 2012.
