Finding Joy in Research
I had planned to write a newsletter today about the history of tariffs (since they are still and constantly in the news) or maybe about how executive power has changed over time. I think those are both worth writing, but my heart just wasn’t in it and I couldn’t make my fingers type the words. This fall was impossibly busy and combined with the news, everything just felt heavy.
Despite the schedule, I’ve managed to carve out a little time here and there for some research on my new book on John Quincy Adams. It brings me such joy and I thought it would be fun to share a couple of little tidbits that stuck out. I figure we could all use an occasional break from the news and just relish our shared love of history. If this type of newsletter isn’t your cup of tea, no problem. I’ll be back with more normal fare next month and let me know if there is a subject or two you’d like me to tackle.
I selected these three diary moments because a) They are not huge political developments—just the opposite in fact. These are the little moments that make up real life. b) They demonstrate JQA’s value as a diarist. His diary was funny, honest, detailed, and brutal with himself above all. c) They help us see his personality in 3D. They make him accessible.
John Quincy Adams had been sick for a couple of days and was determined that he was recovered by August 3. “At about ten this morning, the Doctor called, and observing that this was my bad day advised me to keep my bed; but I told him, I believed the affair was quite over, and I should get up in the course of an hour.— He said he wished I might not find myself mistaken, and recommended to me, at least not to rise untill noon— My impatience however could not wait quite so long— I rose at about eleven, but had not been five minutes up before I found myself so weak and faint that I was obliged to lye down again to recover myself.”
The Doctor returned that evening at 7 PM, when JQA was “in the height of my fever, but observed that there was nothing now to be done, as the disease must take its natural course.” He spent the event fighting the fever, “with a perspiration such as I never before experienced. Every pore in me, seemed turned into a fountain, and all the linen around me, was as if it had been dragged through a river.”
While slightly gruesome, the detailed description of his symptoms is such a gift for a writer! Even better is the window into his personality. JQA was so stubborn and determined to be healthy and you can just imagine the doctor thinking, “Ok, sure, get out of bed, see how that goes for you.” The doctor was correct and JQA wasn’t fully recovered until August 11—eight days later.
JQA and Louisa Catherine spent four years in Berlin, from 1797 to 1801. Every summer, they left the city for a couple of months and traveled around the countryside, visiting small towns, hiking, and touring ruins and museums. In September 1799, they were in the territory of Saxony. A few days after their official introduction to the Elector Frederick Augustus I and Electress Amalie of Zweibrucken-Birkenfeld, they went to view the “electoral treasure, consisting of a numerous collection of articles in silver, gold, and precious stones. The jewels of state which belonged to the electors ancestors when kings of Poland, and are now worn upon great occasions by the elector himself are the most valuable of these splendid baubles,” John Quincy wrote. There was no end to the “diamonds, rubies, garnets, emeralds, sapphires, onyxes,” but the most impressive piece was “A green diamond weighing 129. grams.” The green diamond “is said to be the only one of its kind in Europe,” he noted.
Other collection items included “numerous sword-hilts, cane-pommels, epaulets, buckles, hat-loops, stars and crosses of the order of the golden fleece, buttons, lady’s necklaces, ear-rings, and breast knots, consisting entirely of brilliants, or rose diamonds.” He concluded the tour summary, “The value of this treasure is estimated at 15 millions of dollars.”
These jewels were not the first time JQA had witnessed unimaginable riches in Europe, nor would it be the last time. Surely, he was dazzled by the sparkle, just as Americans are today when they see the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London or mourn the theft of the French Crown Jewels from the Louvre. But the crown jewels were far cry from his humble beginnings in Quincy, Massachusetts, or his modest lodgings in Berlin.
“Mrs: Adams taken ill this morning, in the process of a fourth misfortune, like three others which she has gone through since we arrived at Berlin— She remained all day in bed, suffering no pain; and still entertaining some hopes.”
Since their marriage a few years earlier, JQA regularly wrote of Louisa’s poor health, but this entry is the first that reveals the source of much of that suffering. She was dealing with her fourth miscarriage. Each time, JQA stayed by her side, reading to her and attempting to distract her from her physical and mental pain.
By late September, it was clear Louisa was pregnant again and John Quincy could barely stand to hope this time would go differently. On September 20, he wrote “Mrs: A— very ill indeed, this afternoon—We have a dismal month before us.” One week later, he brought a doctor to see his wife. “But her case no physician can remedy.” Two days after that, he had resigned himself to another loss. “Mrs: A.’s illness rapidly approaching.— She is already very unwell, and will continue so untill the severe and inevitable trial has had its usual end.”
And yet, on January 9, 1801, the diary indicates she had not yet lost the baby. “Mrs: A— continues weak and unwell— Hope will intrude upon the slightest occasion and catch at every straw. I have every reason for excluding it, and receive perpetual warnings against its indulgence.”
A few weeks later, he continued this theme. “Mrs: A— much better again all this day. I believe the alternation perpetually renewed of hope and disappointment is one of the greatest miseries that can be inflicted upon human beings.”
And finally, on April 12, he wrote in his diary, “I have this day to offer my humble and devout thanks to almighty God, for the birth of a son, at half-past three o’clock.”
Louisa Catherine and JQA went on to have several children, but she continued to suffer miscarriages in between her pregnancies and the losses took a terrible toll on her mental and physical health. Admittedly, I’m still working my way through her materials, so I can only share his perspective thus far. But these entries have stuck with me for days. They are so real, so human, and something so many people experience.
This book will largely focus on JQA’s diplomacy and politics, but these events shaped him and they matter. I haven’t figured out how to weave it into the story just yet, but I will.
I hope you enjoyed this little tour of JQA’s diaries. A huge thanks to the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Adams Papers team for making these diaries available online. Their work, and that of papers projects editors everywhere, is so essential for scholarship.
If you are new to my newsletter, thank you! If you’d like to read more, please consider The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution and Mourning the Presidents. You can also buy my new book, Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic.
Available for purchase on Amazon, Bookshop, or wherever you like to buy books. You can buy signed copies of Making the Presidency at Politics & Prose.
Podcasts:
“Presidents v. the Press,” History As It Happens, November 14, 2025.
Listening to America, November 4, 2025, #1676: American Presidents and the Press
Press:
“Why compromise is key to keep the U.S. government running,” USCPrice, November 12, 2025.
“No reaction yet from the White House on Dick Cheney’s death,” CBS News, November 4, 2025.
“Jefferson and the contradictions behind ‘All men are created equal’,” Today Headline, November 2, 2025.
“Ken Burns On the Lawn at Mount Vernon: A Revolutionary Premiere,” The Zebra, October 30, 2025.
“Demolition begins on White House’s East Wing to build Trump’s ballroom,” NHPR, October 21, 2025.
“7 historians react to the razing of the White House East Wing,” DeseretNews, October 24, 2025.
“Up to the Minute Live,” HCCTV, October 23, 2025.
“Historian on what Trump’s White House renovation reveals about him,” CNN, October 22, 2025.
“Crews Demolish East Wing of White House to Make Way for New Ballroom,” Northern Virginia Magazine, October 22, 2025.
Events:
November 20: James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library, Fredericksburg, VA
(Stay tuned for a busy 2026!)
Irin Carmon recently wrote a book concerning the struggles of pregnancy and the last entry underlines how universal that is in time and space. Thank you.
Thank you for this sidelight. It is very interesting.