Adams Family Correspondence

Margaret A. Hogan is an independent scholar and former editor of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. C. James Taylor is former Editor in Chief of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Hobson Woodward is Series Editor for the Adams Family Correspondence of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Sara B. Sikes is Scholarly Communications Design Studio Coordinator at the University of Connecticut and former Associate Editor for Digital Projects of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Gregg L. Lint is Series Editor for the Papers of John Adams of the Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The most recently published volume of the Adams Family Correspondence, edited by Margaret Hogan among others, sustains the high scholarly standards of its predecessors. The period covered, 1790 to 1793, lands us squarely in John's vice-presidency, which he was coming to see as a political cul-de-sac (he called it "the most insignificant office that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived")...[John and Abigail's] correspondence is at its best in allowing us to see how huge policy questions about the very shape of the infant republic were filtered through highly personal concerns about health, aging, and parental frustrations. This is the messy way that history really happens, and the Adams Family Correspondence is unparalleled in providing a peek into the nexus of public and private obsessions.