First Lady Project

First Lady Project

FL 6: Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams (John Quincy Adams)

If John Quincy Adams was a candidate for president of the United States in 1824, his wife was, without a doubt, his unofficial campaign manager. She helped dispel her husband’s occasional doubts about a future in politics, reminding him that public service was his destiny. She discussed current affairs with congressmen and journalists, lobbying them for their support in advancing Adams’s presidential aspirations. She also encouraged her husband to hit the presidential campaign trail in 1824, admonishing him to show himself “if only for a week.” “Do for once gratify me,” she implored him, noting that “if harm comes of it I will promise never to advise you again.

While Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams impressed congressmen and government figures with her political acumen, she made frequent social calls on their wives and entertained Washington society — prior to her occupancy of the presidential mansion — a at elaborate dinners and open house receptions. These events took on greater precedenceimportance, especially during the Monroe administration, because of Elizabeth Monroe’s aloofness and her limited social calendar. As Louisa emerged as one of the leading ladies of Washington society, she usinged her social power to try to manipulate a favorableadvance her husband’s political outcome for her husbandinterests. In 1824, for example, she held a lavish ball celebrating the anniversary of General Andrew Jackson’s victory at the battle of New Orleans. One thousand people attended what was then called the event of the season., Bbut it was Jackson’s reaction that mattered far more to Louisa Adams. Andrew Jackson was a potential presidential candidate in the election of 1824, and while the Louisa Adams threw the ball was used to impress congressmen, dignitaries, and the cream of Washington society, it wasshe also used to it try to convince solicit General Jackson’s that he should support for her husband’s John Quincy Adams’s bid for the presidential bidcy. Although Andrew Jackson did not accede to his hostess’s wishes, John Quincy Adams’s victory over the General can be attributed, at least in part, to the efforts of his wife.

It seemed that givenGiven the importance of Louisa’s social accomplishments and her political insight value to her husband, it seemed as though another formidable Adams partnership was being firmly establishedin the making. But it was not to be. Once John Quincy won the close and disputed presidential election of 1824 —also known also as “the Corrupt Bargain” — his need for his wife’s political assistancecounsel came was atto an end. In fact, the cold and demanding John Quincy Adams simply ignored his wife once he became president, except for when he needed her to hostess official receptions. Louisa was not unaware of the change and noting thated, “I am decried an incumberance unless I am required for any special purpose for a show or some political maneuver and if I wish for a trifle of any kind, any favor is required at my hands, a deaf ear is turned to my request.”

While she Louisa Adams had embraced the role of “campaign manager,” she resented her role as the president’s wife and called her new home “a prison.” She became increasingly despondent during her White House years, suffering from depression — , a condition possibly made worse by the onset of menopause. As a result, the once affable and gregarious Louisa Adams withdrew into herself and became a recluse. She rarely entertained, and instead spentspending her time eating chocolate, composing music, playing the harp, writing poems, and penning satirical plays that parodied her husband’s rigidity and her own spoiled upbringing. She also began her autobiography; and its title, Adventures of a Nobody, seems to reflect her sense of self how she felt about herself during her tenure in the White House.

It is through her writing, and no doubt through her own experience, that Louisa began to consider the challenges wives faced when they wereas financially, politically, and socially controlled bydependents of their husbands. She found that despite the sacrifices wives made as cooks, housekeepers, and lovers, their reward was a life of drudgery, that was subject to the whims of their husbands. As much as she decried the plight of married women,Despite her interest and her writings, Louisa Adams was not a feminist according to current modern standards. and Iin fact, she embraced a the 19th century conception of woman as frail and delicate.

As the election of 1828 neared, it seemed that Louisa Adams personified such fragility and vulnerability. She suffered from severe depression, which was compounded by her husband’s disinterest and the death of her eldest son, George. Nevertheless, Louisa Adams overcame her own misery and grief and rallied to support her husband’s bid for re-election. She emerged from her seclusion to actively campaign actively for him. She and again urged him to become directly involved, even suggesting a potential campaign trip from Washington, D.C. to Boston. But this time, Louisa had to divert some of her energies from supporting her husband to defending herself as her foreign birth became a campaign issue. Born in England, she was viewed by some as un-American — , a claim she vigorously denied — declaring, publicly declaring that she was “the daughter of an American Republican Merchant.” Despite her efforts, John Quincy Adams lost the election to former opponent Andrew Jackson.

It would seem that Wwith Louisa’s impressive social skills and her familiarity with protocol and etiquette — , having lived in England, Prussia, Russia, and France while John Quincy Adams served as foreign minister — it seemed , that she would have been particularly well-suited to the position of presidential spouse. Yet Louisa Adams did not fulfill such expectations. She was depressed and, emotionally withdrawn, and minimizedminimizing her duties in her husband’s administration just as her husband had minimized her importance in his life. Although interested in women’s rights, abolition, the welfare of Native Americans, and later on the annexation of Texas, and war with Mexico, she did notfailed to adopt any one cause to champion and rarely performed her hostessing duties. Although she would serve as a role model for those women actively promoting the presidency of their husbands — and their own role bid to be as First Ladypresidential spouses — she did little to affecthad little impact on how future First LadiesFirst Ladies would approachmanaged their affairs their position once they were in it.

Sources:

Anthony, Carl Sferrazza, First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents’ Wives and Their

Power, 1789-1961 (New York: Quill), 1990.

Gould, Lewis, L., ed., American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy (New York:

Routledge), 2001.

Parsons, Lynn Hudson, “Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams,” in Lewis L. Gould, ed.,

American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy (New York: Routledge), 2001, pp. 45-56.

Watson, Robert P., First Ladies of the United States: A Biographical Dictionary

(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers), 2001.