History Performance - Abigail Adams

PROGRAM

In her many letters to her husband and friends Abigail Adams expressed the concerns and accomplishments of an early American patriotic woman. Her most famous request was for Congress to “Remember the ladies” in the creation of the Constitution of the United States. It was her clear understanding that women’s influences in the domestic sphere were as integral to the development of a new nation as the more public efforts of the founding fathers. Family economics, children’s education and civic responsibility, are the primary concerns of Abigail Adams. Her requests for legislation to benefit future generations included the necessity of education for all children regardless of sex or color, as well as the right to self-determination for all individuals including the emancipation of slaves and granting wives equal status under the law. An understanding of her hopes for posterity beg the question: If the founding fathers would have heeded Mrs. Adams advice sooner, would the nation have been spared years of strife from Civil War to civil rights? A conversation with “Dear Abigail,” 18th century wife and mother provides insight into the concerns of today’s Americans.

PRESENTER

Kim Hanley’s academic training includes a BFA in Restoration and History of Applied Arts from the Fashion Institute of Technology, State University of New York. She is an actor, singer, costumer and dancer who trained and performed from an early age with the School of American Ballet and the Eglevsky Ballet in New York, as well as with the visiting Bolshoi Ballet, and Stuttgart Ballet. Ms. Hanley is also an accomplished costumer whose specialty is historical fashion. She has costumed for many of the Nation’s top historical interpreters and historical sites such as George Washington’s Mount Vernon. On a lighter note, she includes among her “bigger” clients The Philly Phanatic. Kim began interpreting Abigail Adams with AHT from 1997 and now has added Betsy Ross, Molly Pitcher, Alice Roosevelt and Annie Oakley, to her retinue. Ms. Hanley has appeared at the White House Visitors Center, National Archives, National Portrait Gallery, and many others

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