| Summary: | This dissertation examines the writings and the cultural, social, and political actions of Abigail Adams and her daughter-in-law Louisa Catherine Adams, in an effort to further our understanding of the ‘republican courts’ in the early federal capitals of the United States. By examining the influence of European court life on these two women, as well as their complicated and comparative interests in monarchical aesthetics and etiquette, we can better understand why and how they attempted to transfer monarchical Europe’s social hierarchies, ceremonies, protocols, and material aesthetics into the United States capital. This dissertation argues that these efforts were extremely controversial in light of the fact that America had just separated itself from Europe and its royalist traditions. Consequently, the elite actions of the Adams women had a long-lasting impact not only on the reelection outcomes of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, but also on the larger narrative of American political and cultural history. The republican court is still a rarely acknowledged term in the historiographies of the early United States, yet as this dissertation makes clear, this term best describes the social and cultural scene of New York, Philadelphia, and early Washington D.C. from 1789 to the rise of Jackson in 1829, and that the Adams women were the most significant adopters of those European traditions. By reconsidering the Adams women as major key players and facilitators of the republican court, we must conclude that the Adams women were far more complex political figures than has previously been suggested, and because of their efforts, European court culture and high society traditions played a far larger role in the founding of the American government than has previously been realized.
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