From 1778 to 1788, future president John Adams lived in Europe as an American diplomat. Joined by his wife, Abigail, in 1784, the two shared rich encounters with famous heads of the European royal courts. Jeanne E. Abrams, professor of history at the University of Denver, shows that the Adams’ journey not only changed the course of their intellectual, political and cultural development, but served to strengthen their loyalty to America, and highlights how the Adamses and their American contemporaries set about supplanting their British origins with a new American identity.
This virtual program accompanies our current exhibition, Affairs of State: 118 Years of Diplomacy and Entertaining at Anderson House, on view through December 31, 2023.
About the Speaker
Jeanne Abrams is a professor of history at the University Libraries and the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, where she also serves as the director of the Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society and curator of the Beck Archives, Special Collections. She is the author of several books, including A View from Abroad: The Story of John Adams and Abigail Adams in Europe (New York University Press, 2021); First Ladies of the Republic: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Dolley Madison, and the Creation of an Iconic American Role (New York University Press, 2018); and Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health (New York University Press, 2013).