A Traveled First Lady: Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams

439 Pages·2014·3.687 MB·English

by  Louisa Catherine Adams, Margaret A. Hogan, C. James Taylor (eds.), Laura Bush (preface)

A Traveled First Lady

A Traveled First Lady
Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams
Edited by Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor
Foreword by Laura Bush
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
cambridge, massachusetts
london, en gland
2014
Copyright © 2014 by the Massachusetts Historical Society
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Dean Bornstein
An excerpt from Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams:
A Centennial Version, ed. Edward Chalfant and Conrad Edick Wright
(Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007), pp. 13– 15, appears
in the Epilogue, courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Adams, Louisa Catherine, 1775– 1852.
A traveled fi rst lady : writings of Louisa Catherine Adams / edited by
Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor ; foreword by Laura Bush.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978- 0- 674- 04801- 0 (alk. paper)
1. Adams, Louisa Catherine, 1775– 1852. 2. Presidents’ spouses—
United States— Biography. 3. Adams, John Quincy, 1767– 1848.
I. Hogan, Margaret A. II. Taylor, C. James, 1945– I II. Title.
E377.2.A34 2014
973.5'5092—dc23
[B] 2013031131
For our mothers:
Katherine Ann Hogan
Dorothy Isabel Taylor

One of the greatest taxes I have to pay is that of concealing
that I am a travelled Lady.
—Louisa Catherine Adams, 9 February 1821

Contents
Foreword by Laura Bush xi
Introduction xv
Note to the Reader xxiii
1. “All Was Joy and Peace and Love”: Youth 1
2. “An Object of General Attention”: Prus sia 34
3. “Had I Steped into Noah’s Ark”: United States 86
4. “The Savage Had Been Expected”: Rus sia 144
5. “ The Memory of One, Who Was”:
St. Petersburg to Paris 187
6. “ The Wife of a Man of Superior Talents”:
Washington, D.C., 1819– 1820 216
7. “ I Am a Very Good Diplomate”:
Washington, D.C., 1821– 1824 265
8. “This Apparent Fate”: Retirement 326
Epilogue: Henry Adams on Louisa 362
Chronology 367
Ac know ledg ments 375
Index 377
Illustrations follow page 166.