The archive details her struggle against U.S. immigration officials and the NYPD, who used an undercover policewoman to entrap her on charges of "obscenity".
Today, the is available online (often via Rotunda or the MHS website). This database allows users to search the exact handwriting of two presidents. You can watch the ink bleed on the page where John Quincy Adams argued the Amistad case before the Supreme Court, or read the emotional devastation in Abigail’s letter regarding the death of her daughter. adams archive
Furthermore, the archive documents the evolution of American diplomacy and political thought across three critical generations. The papers of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president and later a fierce anti-slavery congressman, chart the nation’s growing pains from a coastal republic to a continental power. His detailed diary, one of the most extensive in American history, captures not only his own relentless moral compass but also the internal battles over the Missouri Compromise and the “gag rule” on abolitionist petitions. Following him, the letters of Charles Francis Adams, ambassador to Great Britain during the Civil War, reveal the delicate, high-stakes diplomacy that kept European powers from recognizing the Confederacy. Finally, the writings of Henry Adams, the great-grandson and a brilliant historian, offer a disillusioned, philosophical post-mortem on the family’s—and the nation’s—18th-century ideals in the face of industrial capitalism. Thus, the archive serves as a multi-generational commentary on the trajectory of the American experiment. The archive details her struggle against U