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Abigail Adams : Exemplary And Stereotypes

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Abigail Adams: Exemplary in Differences and Stereotypes Of Women in the 18th Century

Abigail Adams is one of the most well known women in our national history. Her life demonstrated many characteristics that were exemplary in difference and also typical for her gender of the eighteenth century. Her education, religion, marriage and gender all attributed to make her the admirable woman we study today. In her early life, Abigail never went to school, which was common among girls of that time. “Colonial New England took a casual attitude toward education for females, and many remained illiterate,” and “the goal of female education was to produce better wives and mothers” . Where Abigail differed was she was taught by various family members how to read and write, and she also had access to her father’s library and was “encouraged to study secular literature as well,” beyond just studying the bible. This made her have intellectual thoughts beyond the quiet stereotypical colonial woman. Abigail, even though ahead of her peers, was embarrassed of her education and “was not taught the rules of punctuation, a deficiency to which she became sensitive later in life.” You see many examples of these deficits in the multitude of letters she wrote throughout her lifetime. Abigail’s father, William Smith, was an ordained minister for the “North Parish Congregational Church of Weymouth.” Some of the features of the congregational church were that they “always considered preaching

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