Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past (Sexuality Studies) (37 page)

4. Matthew Gilbert, "No Sex Scandals TaintThis Power Couple in HBO'sJohnAdams,"
Denver Post, March 27, 2008, available at www.denverpost.com/ci_8707240?source=rss
(accessed February 5, 2012).

5. Available at http://naturalresources.house.gov/UploadedFiles/AdamsTestimonyO7
.30.09.pdf.

6. John and Abigail Adams, documentary film, American Experience series (PBS, 2006).

7. Recent biographies include John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (Knoxville: University
of Tennessee Press, 1992), 53; and McCullough, John Adams.

8. On Puritan culture and sexual expression, see, for example, Richard Godbeer, Sexual Revolution in Early America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).

9. Thomas A.Foster, ed., "John Adams and the Choice of Hercules: Manliness and
Sexual Virtue in Eighteenth-Century British America," in New Men: Manliness in Early
America (New York: New York University Press, 201 1), 217-235. On Adams and virtue,
see also, for example, G.J.Barker-Benfield, Abigail and john Adams: The Americanization
of Sensibility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010); Andrew S.Trees, The Founding Fathers and the Politics of Character (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004),
75-106. On John Adams, see, for example, Joseph J.Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character
and Legacy of john Adams (New York: Norton, 1994).

10. Quoted in Walter Stahr, John Jay: Founding Father (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006), 131.

11. Quoted in ibid., 139.

12. John Adams autobiography, part 2, "Travels, and Negotiations," 1777-1778, sheet
9 of 37, April 1-3, 1778 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive,
Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

13. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 25, 1778 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Arcbive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

14. June 23, 1779. John Adams diary 29, March 12 July 31, 1779 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

15. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, January 9, 1797 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Arcbive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/. On his "hatred" of Hamilton, see Ellis, Passionate Sage,
21-25.

16. On the rivalry and comment, see, for example, Gore Vidal, Inventing a Nation:
Washington, Adams, Jefferson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 17.

17. Mercy Otis Warren, History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American
Revolution, 2 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1988), 2:677.

18. Charles Francis Adams, The Works of john Adams, 10 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown,
1856).

19. March 15, 1756. John Adams diary 1, November 18, 1755-August 29, 1756 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

20. John Adams diary 3, 1759 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic
Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

21. John Adams autobiography, part 1, "John Adams," through 1776, sheet 3 of 53
[electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical
Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

22. John Adams autobiography, part 2, "Travels, and Negotiations," 1777-1778, sheet
11 of 37 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts
Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

23. John T.Morse, John Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884), 6-7.

24. Mellen Chamberlain, John Adams: The Statesman of the American Revolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1898), 5-6.

25. Ibid., 96.

26. Adams, The Works of john Adams, 1:61-62.

27. L.H.Butterfield, The Book ofAbigail and john: Selected Letters of the Adams Family,
1762-1784 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975), 11.

28. Kevin White, The First Sexual Revolution: The Emergence ofMale Heterosexuality in
Modern America (New York: New York University Press, 1993).

29. Quoted in Meade Minnigerode, Some American Ladies: Seven Informal Biographies
(1926; repr., Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969), 55.

30. Quoted in ibid.

31. Quoted in Samuel McCoy, This Man Adams: The Man Who Never Died (New York:
Bretano's, 1928), 49; italics original.

32. Quoted in ibid., 50-51.

33. Alfred Steinberg, John Adams (New York: Putnam, 1969), 39-40.

34. Page Smith, John Adams, 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1962), 1:20.

35. Robert A.East, John Adams (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979), 20.

36. Ibid., 57.

37. Ferling, John Adams, 53, 172, 203.

38. Ibid., 26-27.

39. Ibid., 234.

40. McCullough, John Adams, 36, 48, 51.

41. Stahr, John Jay, 162; Thomas Fleming, The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2009), 195.

42. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, June 3, 1778 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

43. John Adams diary 44, March 27 July 21, 1786 [electronic edition], Adams Family
Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist
.org/digitaladams/.

44. Judith St. George, John and Abigail Adams: An American Love Story (New York:
Holiday House, 2001), 46.

45. John P.Diggins, John Adams (New York: Times Books, 2003), 21-22.

46. Ibid., 30.

47. James Grant, John Adams: Party of One (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
2005), 21-22, 43, 203.

48. Fleming, Intimate Lives, 125-129.

49. John Adams diary 3, includes commonplace book entries, spring and summer
1759 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

50. Fleming, Intimate Lives, 125-129.

51. John Adams diary 3, includes commonplace book entries, spring and summer 1759
[electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical
Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

52. Morse, John Adams, 20.

53. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 28, 1776 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

54. Minnigerode, SomeAmerican Ladies, 56.

55. Ibid., 65.

56. Although we should, of course, read these letters as genuine and heartfelt, we must
also recognize that, given the postal system of the day, writers also recognized the distinct
possibility that mail could be read by others. Additionally, in some instances, letters would
be shared. In at least one instance, the sharing of Abigail's letters resulted in gains for her.
"The other Day, after I had received a Letter of yours, with one or two others, Mr. William
Bartell desired to read them. I put them into his Hand," writes John to Abigail, "and the
next Morning had them returned in a large Bundle packed up with two great Heaps of Pins,
with a very polite Card requesting Portias Acceptance of them." Letter from John Adams to
Abigail Adams, July 7, 1775 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive,
Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

57. Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, September 17, 1777 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

58. Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, May 4, 1796 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

59. Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, September 14, 1774 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

60. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 17, 1776 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

61. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, October 1, 1775 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

62. Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, September 14, 1767 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

63. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, February 21, 1779 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

64. On the significance of sibling relationships in early America, see C.Dallett Hemphill, Siblings: Brothers and Sisters in American History (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2011).

65. Edith B.Gelles, Portia: The World of Abigail Adams (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 1-23, 25, 26, 59-71, chaps. 7 and 9. Writers who wish to highlight
the sexuality of the Founding Fathers have consistently applied a double standard to interpreting love letters written between Founding Fathers' wives and other men and those
letters written between Founding Fathers and other women. Letters between Franklin and
women, as we have seen, are readily served as evidence of his libido in a full voyeurism.
Yet, the same authors describe the correspondence of Abigail and James Lovell in qualified
terms. Fleming, for example, calls him her "literary lover" and conveniently uses Gelles
to point out that "historians" have referred to it as a "`virtuous affair."' Fleming, Intimate
Lives, 148. See also Joseph Ellis, First Family: Abigail and John (New York: Vintage, 2010),
72-73; Smith, john Adams, 1:407-409.

66. Anne Husted Burleigh, John Adams (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1969),
36-37.

67. Ibid., 38-39.

68. East, John Adams, 30, 35-36, 76, 68.

69. Ferling, John Adams, 321.

70. Richard Brookhiser, America's First Dynasty: Tbe Adamses, 1735-1918 (New York:
Free Press, 2002), 17, 37.

71. Grant, John Adams, 215, 217.

72. Available at www.clarencedarrowgaryanderson.com/law-liberty-passion.html.

73. Diggins, John Adams, 22-23.

74. Smith, John Adams, 1:167.

75. Ellis, First Family, 16, 79.

76. Available at www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/adams/sfeature/sf-letters.html.

77. Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, October 16, 1774 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

78. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, February 10, 1777 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Arcbive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

79. Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, December 27, 1778 [electronic edition], Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Archive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

80. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 14, 1789 [electronic edition],
Adams Family Papers: An Electronic Arcbive, Massachusetts Historical Society, available at
www.masshist.org/digitaladams/.

81. Stahr, john jay, 187, 191. See, for example, Anya Jabour, Marriage in the Early Republic: Elizabeth and William Wirt and the Companionate Ideal (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1998).

82. Available at http://harvardpress.typepad.com/off the-page/2008/02/the-romance-
of.html (accessed February 5, 2012).

83. Available at http://clarencedarrowfoundation.org/lovers-and-patriots.html. In
Cokie and Steve Roberts's biography of their marriage, they include a section on John and
Abigail, referring to their union as "one of the most remarkable" marriages. Cokie and
Steve Roberts, From This Day Forward (New York: William Morrow, 2001), 38.

84. Available at www.rememberingtheladies.com/Rememberingtheladies/AbigailAdams.html.

85. Ellis, First Family, 3, 108.

CHAPTER 4

1. H.W.Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (New
York: Doubleday, 2000); Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 216-217; and Gordon S.Wood, The Americanization
of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Penguin, 2005). For an analysis of slavery figured into
Franklin's Americanness, see David Waldstreicher, Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin,
Slavery, and the American Revolution (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004).

2. Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin.

3. Ibid., 2.

4. Thomas Fleming, The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers (Washington, DC:
Smithsonian Books, 2009), 77, 103.

5. Paul M.Zall, Benjamin Franklin's Humor (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
2005), 1. For an early-twentieth-century biography that depicts Franklin's flirtatiousness
as charming and nonthreatening, see Benjamin Franklin, Dr. Benjamin Franklin and the
Ladies: Being Various Letters, Essays, and Bagatelles and Satires to and about the Fair Sex
(Mount Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1939). The title page reads, "collected for the
Public Delight." The text includes the at-times controversial "Speech of Polly Baker" and
"Choice of a Mistress."

6. Claude-Anne Lopez, My Life with Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 24.

7. Larry E.Tise, ed., Benjamin Franklin and Women (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2000), ix-x.

8. On Franklin, see, for example, Carla Mumford, ed., The Cambridge Companion to
Benjamin Franklin (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008).