The tradition began with the second First Lady, Abigail Smith Adams. She and her husband, President John Adams, spent most of their single term in Philadelphia, the interim capital of the United States. Not until 1800 did Abigail and John move into the unfinished White House, where she had the dolorous privilege of watching her husband become the first incumbent President to lose his bid for reelection. Abigail has another, happier distinction. She is the only First Lady who became the mother of a President. Her oldest and favorite son, John Quincy Adams, succeeded James Monroe in 1825. Unfortunately, for reasons which seem inherent in the Adamses’ genes, John Quincy too was a one-term President. Like almost every other First Lady, Abigail wondered if she could do the job—though there was scarcely a woman in America who was more qualified. Abigail Adams had been a political wife for twenty years before John won the highest office in the new republic in 1796. She had unwaveringly supported her husband as he and Thomas Jefferson and George Washington led the American people into independence and revolutionary war.
