Louisa Catherine Adams Was Somebody
In Pursuit essay by author Louisa Thomas spotlights the woman who was First Lady Louisa Catherine Adams.
Marrying into a famous political family has its challenges. And as the daughter-in-law to the outspoken and respected Abigail Adams, wife of America’s second President John Adams, Louisa Catherine Adams found settling into the White House more than 20 years after her father-in-law’s presidency, notably unsettling.
Readers learn quickly in the latest In Pursuit essay “True Strength Begins With Self-Knowledge and Reflection” by Louisa Thomas that the wife of the sixth U.S. president, John Quincy Adams, was put off by the “disrepair” of the White House and overcome by feelings of displacement.
Thomas, author of “Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams,” illustrates this with an excerpt from a letter Mrs. Adams wrote to her son saying, “There is something in this great unsocial home which depresses my spirits beyond expression … and makes it impossible for me to feel at home or fancy that I have a home anywhere.”
Scholars note tha…
