Honors in the Major - Grace Martin and “’Affectionally Yours’: Gendered Differences in the Epistolary World of Abigail Adams, 1744-1789”
While Grace Martin had always wanted to do an Honors in the Major project, she decided to participate in the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program first to learn more about historical research at the university level. As a sophomore, she worked with Danielle Wirsansky on the UROP project of Women Spies in World War II. There, she learned how to source and analyze primary and secondary material. Martin was particularly pleased that she could work on documents that Wirsansky had just acquired during her fieldwork in London. Based on this research experience, Martin decided to research and write a paper on a topic of her own choice.
“I knew that I wanted to work on early American history, and I looked around the department to see who could supervise my work.” She settled on Dr. Katherine Mooney as her HITM director. Martin was fascinated by the life of Abigail Adams. “Adams was the first historical figure that made me fall in love with history.” She knew that Adams’ correspondence would be an excellent source to use for her project, and there were a lot of secondary materials available as well. “A lot of books focus only on Abigail’s correspondence with her husband or on one other person, but I wanted to compare themes in her writing across multiple letter recipients.” Martin planned to work only on Adam’s correspondence with other women but then realized that it would be much more insightful to also include letters to male friends as well as her husband. To keep things within manageable proportions, Martin selected a handful of correspondents who were the main recipients of Abigail Adams’ letters.
All of the Abigail Adams letters were available in digital format through the Massachusetts Historical Society. This allowed Martin to browse, filter and find the correspondence she needed. It became clear to Martin that Adams wrote in different ways to her male and female friends and relatives. With her female correspondents, Adams was more involved in news sharing, while she often requested political information and favors from her male letter writers. From James Lovell, for example, Adams requested journals from Congress which was not something that she could receive from her women correspondents. Adams was aware of the gender expectations of the time and in her letters, particularly to men, acknowledged and circumvented those expectations. “She would write ‘I know that I am not supposed to talk about public affairs,’ and then proceeded to talk about it,” explained Grace.
When Martin discovered that there were more than 900 letters written by Abigail Adams in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s digital archive, she realized she had to narrow the period under investigation. Grace decided to review only the correspondence until 1789, when Abigail Adams returned from her stay abroad. “It was interesting to see how differently she wrote to the different correspondents. To her sisters she described everything in great detail – from architecture to cultural differences, as she was aware that they were unlikely to ever travel abroad, but with her male correspondents she was much less descriptive.”
Martin confessed that she was a bit nervous when she got started on the HITM project. “I underestimated how much time it might take to complete this work.” Before, the longest paper that Grace had written was 10 to 12 pages with many of the sources provided as course material. She quickly realized that the HITM project was on a different scale. A big challenge was reading the secondary literature. It became clear that there were many more books than she had time to read. “That’s when indexes became my new best friend. I realized how useful it was to look up specific information in the index and thus focus my reading on the relevant sections in a text. That was a major breakthrough!”
Martin also began to have doubts about her ability to succeed. In spite of a perfect GPA and excellent grades, she started questioning her ability to complete the HTIM thesis. “It was just such a big project, and I wanted to produce something that I could be proud of.” She ended up with an article-length paper and confirmation of her abilities at the thesis defense.
Staying on top of all her responsibilities was not an easy task. “I am a very involved person, I work for FSU Housing, I am on the executive board of my sorority, and also on the executive board of Her Campus, and am taking a full course load.” This meant that Martin’s approach to her HITM work had to be flexible. When she had events to organize, she spent less time on her project but then took weeks out to make up time. She was glad that outside of the two set deadlines, the prospectus defense and the thesis defense at the end, she had a lot of flexibility in how to structure the work. “I quickly changed my mindset from looking at the HITM work as something ‘I had to do’ to something ‘I got to do,’ since I applied for this and wanted to do it on top of all the other stuff.”
Martin met regularly with her advisor, Dr. Mooney, and she felt that those meetings helped her clarify her thoughts. “I am a talker, and I would tell Dr. Mooney all my thoughts, and she would respond with ‘From what I am hearing, this is what you are arguing.’ And that was so helpful.” Dr. Mooney worked with Grace when she decided to shift the focus of her thesis from only looking at women’s correspondence to taking a broader view. Through regular discussions, Martin stayed on track with her work and focused on her arguments.
The defense at the end was intimidating. Being in a room with History professors who work on this period was nerve wracking for Martin. “I knew that there was a lot more that could be researched, and I was aware of all the unanswered questions in my work. And I did not know what they would ask.” But once her committee began to ask questions and Martin understood the directions in which the questions were going, it became less scary. In the end, the committee suggested that Grace add another paragraph to set out more clearly the context in which Abigail Adams operated.
Her advice to other History majors is “Do the Honors in the Major project!” Several of Martin’s friends were also working on HITM theses, and they often sat together and discussed their work. “It helped build a little community of History students who were all doing this research project. While we worked on different topics, we had common tasks like writing a prospectus. Those things we debated in the group.” Martin called up a previous History major’s HITM thesis to see how she had structured her work. “While she worked on something very different, it was very helpful to see how she had organized her work.”
Another piece of advice that Martin offered was to use a paper from a previous class as a springboard for the HITM project. She herself had considered expanding a research project on the development of chemical weapons during World War I from her sophomore year. But in the end her love for Abigail Adams won out.
One thing that Martin realized during the HITM process was that historical research might not be a career goal for her. While she loved her project, she became aware that one thing she liked about it was that all her primary sources were digitally available. She felt that if they had not, it might have been a very different ball game. While she enjoyed digging deep into the life and writing of one person, Martin came to realize that she likes history broadly and does not necessarily want to work on a specific niche area alone. "Initially I thought that the HITM project would be a good way to prepare me for a master’s degree in History. But now I know that I like so many different parts of history that I don’t know if I want to focus just on one.”
Through her involvement in her sorority, Martin has discovered her love for event planning and fund raising. Her ultimate career goal is to start her own nonprofit organization centered on civic literacy and history education. The focus of the organization would be on how history is taught rather than what is taught. “I fell in love with History because of the way my teacher taught it, and I want to help other people also have a positive attitude to history.” Her aim is to combine her enthusiasm for history with her passion for philanthropic work. The research and communication skills that she was able to hone in the HITM project as well as her ability to manage her time successfully are all elements that will be useful for her career path.