Abigail Adams received no formal schooling, but educated herself through reading

Abigail Adams was a shrewd and largely self-taught financial investor

While John was away during the Revolution and his diplomatic career, Adams managed the family's finances and investments skillfully. When John urged her to buy farmland in 1783, she refused—investing instead in government bonds and earning up to 25% annually, compared to his farmland's 1%.

Hear Abigail Adams' 1786 letters—reporting from London on politics and society

This podcast brings to life a letter Abigail wrote to her son John Quincy in February 1786, reporting from London on dinners with wealthy South Carolinians and the relationships of her daughter Nabby—with commentary from a Massachusetts Historical Society scholar.

Adams was so involved as first lady that some nicknamed her 'Mrs. President'

As first lady, Adams took an active role in her husband's presidency—advising on appointments, critiquing his speeches, and corresponding extensively with politicians. She supported the controversial Alien and Sedition Acts and pressed for war with France during the XYZ Affair.

Read biographies of 3 generations of the Adams family

The Massachusetts Historical Society provides biographical profiles covering three generations of the Adams family—using its extensive archive of family papers and correspondence to trace one of the most notable dynasties in American political history.

Adams' famous 1776 letter urged the Founders to 'remember the ladies'

In a March 1776 letter to John, Adams urged the Founders not to grant husbands unchecked power over their wives. Historians note it was not a demand for suffrage but a challenge to coverture—the legal doctrine that denied a married woman an independent identity.

Austen left formal school at 9

Jane Austen was the seventh of eight children. At 9, her father, a clergyman in the Church of England, removed her and her sister from the Abbey School in Reading because he could not afford the tuition. Jane continued her education at home, where the family read aloud and performed plays.

See how the Declaration evolved from draft to final text

John Adams urged Congress to choose Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration because of his literary skill and low-profile reputation. Read Jefferson’s initial draft, which included passages later removed, including a forceful denunciation of slavery.

George Washington had a limited formal education, leaving school at 15

A few years after his father died in 1743, Washington's schooling ended. He soon began working as a land surveyor in Virginia. He later assumed management of Mount Vernon at age 22 and became the estate's master at age 29.

Senda Berenson Abbott revolutionized women's basketball

In the late 1800s, college physical education programs were used to prepare post-Victorian Era women for the workforce. In 1890, Smith College built one of the country's largest and most well-equipped gyms and hired Senda Berenson to run its activities, which she did by revising basketball's rules so women could play while still meeting societal expectations.

A comprehensive biography of Emily Dickinson, the influential American poet

This deep dive into Dickinson's biography includes a fascinating anecdote about her time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary—where she was distinguished from the "established Christians" and deemed "without hope"—as well as the significance of her correspondence with close friend Susan Gilbert, one of her primary readers and eventual sister-in-law.

The earliest colonial schools were often religious

The earliest American schools were far from our notions of “public” or “private”—they were neighborhood institutions, often founded by religious groups, that sought to educate children academically and spiritually.

Abolitionists shaped American history from the Revolution to the Civil War

Abolitionists of all backgrounds organized against slavery from the founding era onward. Historian Manisha Sinha argues that their decades of activism fundamentally shaped American democracy and made emancipation possible.

Read passages from Truth's autobiography, dictated because she was illiterate

Because Truth was illiterate, her memoir was dictated to and written by Olive Gilbert. Published in 1850, "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth" recounts her life in slavery, escape to freedom, and religious awakening.

The 'maiden of maiden voyages' who taught the world how to fly

In 1939, Clara Adams set the world record for the fastest person to circle the globe via commercial airliner, though she was a passenger and not a pilot. This article explores the impact of Adams' journey on the commercial flight industry. During...

Women lost legal rights after the revolution, despite educational gains

The revolution rolled back women's legal protections, including the Family Protection Law, and imposed the mandatory hijab. Paradoxically, women later achieved significant educational gains, with university enrollment and literacy rates dramatically improving.

At 18, Eleanor taught immigrant children in one of New York's poorest neighborhoods

After finishing school in London, Roosevelt returned to New York and volunteered at a settlement house on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side, working directly with immigrant families living in poverty.

'I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.'

- Martha Washington (1731-1802)

The Wright brothers' sister hyped their work, and was the only one to attend college

Katharine Wright became the de facto household caretaker after their mother, Susan, died, when Katharine was 15. After graduating from Oberlin, Katharine took over household duties so her father and brothers could work. She promoted their work in the US and abroad.

Horace Mann was America’s champion of free, standardized public schooling

Horace Mann (1796–1859), Massachusetts Secretary of Education from 1837–1848, led the 19th-century Common School Movement. He established state boards, founded normal schools for teacher training, and urged universal, nonsectarian, tax-funded education. His reforms became national models.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Twain read (and lampooned) classic literature

Ever the ironist, Twain claimed to have “ no liking for novels or stories.” Obviously, that was untrue: He read widely, devouring books by Charles Dickens, slave narratives, and texts on astronomy. He also loved John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” which he called “something everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.”

Child prodigy writer Barbara Newhall Follett mysteriously disappeared in 1939

She published her first book at age 12 to much critical acclaim. She then did the same two years later. But by 25 she was married and struggling to publish another manuscript. One day, she left her apartment and never returned. The case was never solved.

Mary Cassatt was not a fan of Mother's Day

When Mother's Day was first proposed as a holiday in 1913, the American Impressionist opposed it, believing that women's suffrage was a far more important issue. The holiday was established by an act of Congress in 1915; Congress did not pass the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote, until 1919.

Grace Hopper was inspired to join the armed forces after the attack on Pearl Harbor

Despite being too old to enlist and weighing below the required minimum to serve, Hopper was granted an exemption and assigned to work on the first electromechanical computer produced in the US. She and her team spent three months using the device to solve equations needed to design the implosion mechanism for the atomic bomb.

'Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.'

- Jane Addams (1860-1935)

Mark Zuckerberg attended one of the most prestigious prep schools in America

Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire is one of the most prestigious private preparatory schools in the US. Zuckerberg attended the academy from 2000 to 2002 and was captain of the fencing team.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.