Wife of President John Adams, Abigail also was the mother of President John Quincy Adams. During the decades of the 1770s and 1780s, husband John was away from home on various diplomatic missions to Europe. Abigail handled the children's education and John's large correspondence. She was the first First Lady to live in the White House. A progressive in her time, Abigail Adams was one of the first women in this country to advocate that women were equal rather than inferior to men. She also opposed slavery.