Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Diplomatic Prowess of Louisa Adams

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Stepping into the White House at the close of the Founding Fathers’ era, London-born Louisa Adams became the nation’s first foreign-born First Lady. In an age of prosperity shadowed by growing political strife, she turned personal tragedy into resilience, mastering the art of influence, forging powerful alliances, and leaving her mark on history as she helped shape John Quincy Adams’s path to the presidency. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Let's do a quick recap. When we last left off, we had talked about five of our nation's first ladies, Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Martha Jefferson, actually died before Jefferson took office, Dolly Madison and Elizabeth Monroe. And we had also talked about the lives of some of the people with whom they were uniquely intertwined, like Ben Franklin, the Hemings family, and political scandal mongerer James Callender. But by the time our next first lady entered the White House, the era of the founding fathers was coming to an end. James Monroe was the last president who had also been a framer of the Constitution and the nation was beginning to transform. Railroads connected people and goods and services across the country and industrial growth led to economic prosperity.

But even as the country saw new changes, the White House was home to a familiar family. In 1825, John Quincy Adams, the son of former President John Adams, was sworn in as the sixth president of the United States after an extremely unusual election season. His wife, Louisa, was at his side. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. In order to become the president of the United States, a candidate has to meet only three basic requirements. They have to be at least 35 years old, be a natural-born citizen, and they have to have resided in the United States for at least 14 years,

meaning you can't be born here and then move away to say Saskatchewan until you're 35 and then come waltzing back hoping to be president. No, you have to put in some time in the United States first. However, a president's spouse does not need to meet the same set of qualifications. There are no specific rules at all about the president's spouse. But interestingly, only two first ladies, of course, all the spouses of every person. president we've had so far, has been a woman. Someday that will change. But only two first ladies were born outside of the United States. Melania Trump, who was born in Yugoslavia, which is now part of Slovenia, and Louisa Adams, who was born Louisa Catherine Johnson in 1775.

She was a wealthy London socialite courted by John Quincy, the son of our second president, John Adams. I like to call John Quincy Adams the Quincy. That is my pet nickname for him. Louisa, even though she was born in London in 1775 and was a British citizen, also had American citizenship. Her mother, Catherine, was English, but her father, Joshua Johnson, was a wealthy merchant who came from a prominent Maryland family. In fact, Louisa's uncle Thomas served as Maryland's governor when she was a toddler.

Thomas Johnson was a close personal friend of George Washington. And it was George Washington who appointed him as one of America's first Supreme Court justices in 1791. So needless to say, Louisa grew up well-connected on two continents and in a wealthy home. She later admitted that her childhood had been indulgent and filled with frivolity. She was one of seven daughters, and they were all raised with the singular goal of becoming good wives to well-connected men. When the American Revolutionary War began, Joshua Johnson, Louise's father, felt it would be safer to move his family out of England, where society was not too keen on rubbing elbows with a family who had ties in the colonies. So the Johnson settled in France in 1778 when Louisa was. three years old. By the time they returned to England after the war ended, Louisa was fluent in

French and had to relearn conversational English. She caught on quickly and was, in general, an energetic learner. Her parents encouraged her to develop her taste for music and literature, and she played both the piano and the harp, and she wrote poetry with her sisters. She loved to read, but it wasn't as encouraged as her other pursuits. It was, quote-unquote, unwomanly to take an interest in subjects like science and Greek, and her parents preferred their daughters to pursue music and needlework instead. Though it has been suggested that one of Louise's teachers was a bit of a rebel influence on the Johnson girls and regularly persuaded them to push the boundaries of their studies and form their own opinions, imagine.

Imagine a rebel teacher encouraging you to form your own opinion. I'm just teasing. Louise's father maintained his American connections becoming the United States Consul General in 1790. A consul general, by the way, is an official who helps facilitate good relationships between the country of their origin and the country they reside in. So in this case, it meant that Joshua Johnson and his wife, Catherine, spent a lot of time hosting welcoming parties and events for traveling Americans.

By the time the Johnson Girls were teenagers, their London home was the premier social stop for visiting diplomats and politicians, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. There were seven wealthy and accomplished young women under one roof. John Quincy Adams, the Quincy, the 30-year-old son of John Adams,

and a diplomat appointed to serve in the Netherlands was in England for a short time when he first became acquainted with the Johnson sisters. Louisa was the second oldest, and John Quincy first showed particular interest in her older sister Anne when he visited. But eventually, Louisa caught his eye. John Quincy and Louisa had a six-month courtship

before he proposed in the spring of 1796. She accepted his proposal, but John Quincy, ever the serious type, decided he had been away from his duties in the Netherlands for too long and left his fiancé in London, but they continued their courtship through letter writing. John Quincy originally wanted them to wait until they returned to the United States before they got married, but the pair ended up tying the knot in London

on July 26th, 1797, even though John Quincy's own family was back in Massachusetts. By the way, his father was president at this time. Shortly after the wedding, Louisa's father fell on hard times. He left England and returned to America to escape his creditors. And John Quincy did not receive the dowry that Johnson had promised him. Louise was very embarrassed and worried that people would think she had tricked John Quincy into marrying her. But to his credit, John Quincy wrote in his own diary that he had no regrets about his decision to marry Louisa. The couple stayed in Europe together for a few years after their marriage.

John Adams, the Quincy's father, was, as I mentioned, serving as president at the time, and he appointed his son to be the first American minister to what was then Prussia. It's now the countries of Germany and Poland. So Louisa did not make her first journey to live in the United States until 1801 when she was 26 and a new mother. She was full of anxiety about how she would fit in with the Adams family. So John and Abigail were a power couple. Literally, they had just finished a term as president and first lady, and Abigail had already made it clear that she didn't particularly approve of Louisa and Quincy's marriage.

Abigail was not super pleased that her son married a delicate and pampered Englishwoman. She had hoped he would marry a New Englander, someone sturdier than the genteel Louisa. John Adams, however, was warm and welcoming to his new daughter. law, and Louisa, in turn, learned to adore him. And although Abigail and Louisa were never particularly close, they did learn to cultivate a relationship of mutual respect over the years. Louisa once said that Abigail was the guiding planet around which we all revolved, and the two wrote each other frequent letters when they were apart, filling each other in on the news of their joined families.

Louisa did not enjoy life on the Adams' farm homestead in Quincy, Massachusetts. She felt it was too provincial, saying, had I stepped into Noah's Ark, I do not think I could have been more utterly astonished. I mean, it makes sense if you think about it, that she was raised a wealthy child in London, which was a large city and then she moved across the ocean to a very rural farm in

Massachusetts. She did like Washington, D.C., however, and as John Quincy's political career flourished is that long periods of time there. Hi, I'm Nancy Cartwright. You may know me better as the voice of Bart Simpson. On Simpsons

Declassified, we're diving into the mysteries that keep the Simpsons forever young. Have you ever wondered how the Simpsons regularly predicts future events? Who better to ask than the show's creators, performers, and writers? The celebrity guests, be sure to follow and listen to Simpsons Declassified wherever you get your podcasts. As her upbringing dictated, Louisa gracefully participated in society life as a politician's wife,

smiling and bowing and making pleasant conversation. Quincy would escort her to dinners and parodies and then disappear with his political contemporaries to play cards and network. But Louisa very much wanted to play a role in helping to further John Quincy's political ambitions, and she began to get more involved. Women, of course, weren't allowed to retire with the men to drink brandy and strategize. So Louisa used her resources and began to host regular social engagements for the couples in the capital city. There is speculation that John Quincy and Louisa had a rather cool relationship, but that may have had more to do with the fact that they're often compared to Abigail and John, whose numerous letters, thousands of letters to one another, paint this picture of this very, tender lifelong romance. John Quincy and Louisa

weren't quite as prolific, and they weren't as overtly affectionate in their correspondence to each other either. They often addressed each other as sir and madam. But there's still a warmth and familiarity in their

letters that they don't usually get much credit for. John Quincy freely shared gossip about the political circles he circulated in. And Louisa, for her part, kept him updated on the family and didn't shy away from giving him strategic advice. Often she would write several pages to her husband that suggested that she had a pretty keen interest in politics. They exchanged their fair share of sweet talk to, with John Quincy off and calling Louisa dearest and closing his letters to her with lines like this one, which he wrote in 1804.

Adieu, my dearest friend, may you never feel a pang imparted from your husband's hand, and may his feelings of the warmest and tenderest affection ever meet with equal and correspondent sentiments in return. The relationship certainly had its shares of ups and downs. Louisa had 15 pregnancies during her younger years, 15. but she suffered mostly miscarriages that would fuel her pangs of depression for the remainder of her life. Only three of their children survived to adulthood. After three of living sons, Louisa had a daughter who they also named Louisa.

Sadly, the baby died shortly after her first birthday. Notable, though, is the fact that baby Louisa was the first recorded American citizen to be born in the country of Russia. In 1809, John Quincy was appointed as the ambassador to St. Petersburg, Russia. In what we'd consider to be a very bold move today, he made arrangements for his two oldest sons, George, who was 11, and John the 2nd, who was 9, to move into a Boston boarding school. And he did not consult Louisa before doing any of this. decided that only he and Louisa and two-year-old Charles Francis would go to Russia. It would

surprise no one, I'm sure, to hear that Louisa was devastated. She did not want to leave two of her sons and move to Russia. So remember, this was a woman who had endured the hardship of many miscarriages at this point, being a whole world away from her children, had to have broken her heart. Things did not improve for Louisa once she settled in Russia, though her sister Catherine accompanied the Adams' is, and that brought her some comfort. The Tsar took a liking to both women finding them refined and often invited them to parties at his court. But despite the wealth and glitz of the Tsar's court, John Quincy made a pretty meager, American diplomat salary. And Louisa struggled with bone-chillingly cold winters. She suffered from frequent headaches

and poor health and had a difficult pregnancy with her daughter. And once born, baby Louisa brightened her mother's spirits, but her happy days did not last very long. Baby Louisa died of dysentery when she was only 13 months old. When the Adams' left Russia. They had to leave behind Little Louisa. They had buried in a church cemetery. And that had to be just an unspeakable loss, knowing that you will probably never see your daughter's grave again and probably never returned to Russia. In 1914, John Quincy was called away from Russia to Belgium, where he would help negotiate a treaty that would end the war of 1812. Once peace was secured, he wrote to Louisa and asked her to sell their property in

St. Petersburg and join him in Paris as soon as she could. Louisa was surprised at this request. It was the first time she had the responsibility for the decision of her family's financial affairs. But Louisa stepped up. She settled all of the Adams' business dealings in Russia and arranged for transportation to France. It was the dead of winter when Louisa and her youngest son set out with a few of their household sermons. The trip from Russia to Paris took six weeks. We think it takes a long time to fly from New York to Paris. Imagine six weeks.

Six weeks is how long it took to get there with a small child. And tensions in Europe were still very high, and Louise's entourage. was stopped before they could cross into France. They were traveling in a Russian carriage, and Napoleon's soldiers were convinced they were the enemy. But Louisa was quick on the draw. Remember, she grew up speaking fluent French, and so she was able to communicate effectively with the soldiers,

shouting, Viva Napoleon, and explaining who they were until the soldiers believed that her group was not a threat. When Abigail Adams learned of her daughter-in-law's eventful journey, she saw her in a new light. She was impressed by Louisa's bravery and resourcefulness, and the women's relationship with each other grew warmer. In 1817, President James Monroe appointed John Quincy Adams as the Secretary of State, and the family moved back to America. Loisa was finally reunited with her older sons five years after she had to leave them behind. Imagine not seeing your young children for five years and during that time losing another child that you had to bury and leave behind.

Determined to fulfill her desire to bolster her husband's political career, she began entertaining in the family's capital city home. hosting politicians and their wives for dinner and dancing every Tuesday evening. And if you remember back to our episode about Elizabeth Monroe, the first lady when John Quincy was Secretary of State, she was not a lavish party thrower. The Monroe's social strategy was pretty low-key. And so it felt on Louisa to literally pick up the ball. She stepped in and organized grand parties and dances for the elite in. Washington. Strategically, she took every opportunity to tell her influential guess that her husband

would make a good president. John Quincy was certainly smart. He was ambitious, but he felt it was distasteful to campaign. He thought his merits alone should speak for his aptitude as a leader, and he did very little to promote himself as the next potential president. Louisa, however, was not above strategizing and networking and she is often credited with raising his popularity and positioning him to run for president. But it was a tough election and an unusual one. By the election of 1824, the Federalist Party had dissolved, and the country was operating under a one-party system run by the Democratic Republicans.

The four major candidates in the election were Senator Andrew Jackson, Speaker of the House Henry Clay, Treasury Secretary William Crawford, and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. John Quincy ended up being elected president by the House of Representatives because the election produced no clear winner in the Electoral College. In fact, Adams did not win the popular vote or the Electoral College majority. It was Andrew Jackson who won the popular vote, but he accumulated only 99 electoral votes, which fell short of a majority. Adams took 84 electoral votes, Crawford 41, and Clay 37.

So let me catch you up here. Even though I know you will have all memorized the Constitution's 12th Amendment, which passed 1804, it dictates that when a candidate is not elected by a majority of the election. electors, the decision will go to the House of Representatives with each state allotted one vote. It's called a contingent election. So because Clay, Henry Clay, did not finish in one of the top three positions, he was eliminated from the House vote, another stipulation of the 12th Amendment. But here is where the game of politics gets interesting. With MX Platinum, access to exclusive AMX pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime.

That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race. Turns and conditions apply. Learn more at amex.ca.com slash Y Annex. Clay shared a similar agenda with Adams. They both supported the unification of the nation under the umbrella of a bigger federal government and advocated that fewer decisions. should be made at the state level. But Clay, remember, was Speaker of the House, which

meant he controlled the proceedings of the House of Representatives. He was vocal about his support of Adams, and he painted Andrew Jackson as the lesser qualified candidate. And he was successful in his persuasion. The House of Representatives was persuaded to vote in John Quincy Adams as the 6th president on February 9th, 1825. Andrew Jackson, as you can imagine, was livid. He was convinced that the election had been stolen from him, and he bellowed, the Judas of the West has closed the contract and will receive the 30 pieces of silver. He, of course, is referring to one of Jesus' disciples.

Judas, who had betrayed him. And he said, was there ever witnessed such a bare-faced corruption in any country before? And just days after taking office, John Quincy Adams nominated Henry Clay to be his secretary of state. And the nomination immediately rekindled campaign rumors that the men had struck a corrupt bargain behind close. doors before the vote. When John Quincy Adams and Louisa moved into the White House, they did not receive the warmest of welcomes. The bitter politics of the election were tough on Louisa.

Her health suffered and her headaches got worse. But by the time she took on the title of First Lady, she was a seasoned politician's wife and a master of social graces. So she continued her weekly drawing room teas and stately dinners, even though she much preferred quiet evenings. The Adams' hosted weekly events for dignitaries. They held public receptions twice a month, and they gave an occasional ball even.

But they rarely went out socially beyond what was required of them. On the nights when her post-ist duties were not required, Louisa spent her time reading, writing letters, and poetry, or playing the harp. During the second half of his term, John Quincy faced a new form of opposition. While he still had some support from people in the north, he faced scrutiny from the south.

The Adamses were famous for being very staunchly anti-sons. slavery, and Andrew Jackson's popularity was on the rise. Jackson's supporters called themselves Democrats. So previously, heading into the election of 1824, there had only been one party after the Federalist Party dissolved, but it took less than one congressional cycle for that party to split into two again. We often like to think that we're living in the most divided times in our nation's history, but that is just like not at all true. Voters have always had fundamental disagreements about how the country should be rise. In 1825, these new Democrats and another group called the National Republicans were dubbed by the press as Adams men, the National Republicans, and Jackson men,

the Democrats. Ultimately, voters elected a Democratic congressional majority, which made it almost impossible for John Quincy Adams to move forward with many of his proposed reforms. Even his northern supporters were frustrated, and his popularity dipped even further. When Adams ran for re-election in 1828, he lost spectacularly to Andrew Jackson. And Louise's last days at the White House were not happy ones. John Quincy grew bitter in his rivalry against Andrew Jackson and Louise's sons who were now adults were having a rivalry of their own.

The three brothers all fell for the same girl. And that girl was their cousin, Barry Catherine Helen, who lived with the Adams family after the death of her parents. And in the end it was Louise's second son. son John, who won her hand. When they were married in the White House in 1828, John's brothers, George, and Charles Francis, refused to attend. The following spring, John Quincy and Louisa made preparations to return to Massachusetts.

They asked their oldest son George, who was then practicing law in Boston to help them move, but he never made it to their sides. George drank often and engaged in a lifestyle that had led to debts, professional flounderings, in an affair with the chambermaid of the family's doctor. And the maid gave birth to his child, and he hid them away to visit them in secrecy. George set off for Washington, D.C., from Boston aboard the steamship Benjamin Franklin. his hat and coat were found neatly folded on the deck on April 30th, 1829, and his body washed up along the New York coast a few months later.

It's believed that he jumped intentionally. Both Louisa and John Quincy were heartbroken, and Louisa's grief can be read in her poem, poor George to him that is gone forever. She wrote, So long in memory shalt thou live And that fond heart enshrined And God in pity will forgive

This weak and erring mind. With the heavy heart, Loisa thought they would retire to Massachusetts permanently. But the couple was still fairly young. Louisa was only 53. And John Quincy was 61. After a few short years away from the Capitol, John Quincy grew restless and ran for a seat in the House of Representatives.

It was a popularly held opinion that former presidents should not continue to hold public office, but John Quincy won his seat in 1831. And John Quincy continued to serve fulfilling nine terms and a whopping 17, years until his death in 1848. John Quincy actually died in a very famous way. He was serving in the House of Representatives, which many people think was his greatest achievement, his time as a representative. We have John Quincy Adams to thank for the Smithsonian Institution. He was also fascinated with science and astronomy. And it was John Quincy's advocacy that led to a series of observatories being built all over the country. He had just finished voting on something in the House of Representatives

when he had a massive stroke there on the floor of the House of Representatives who's 80 years old. And people picked him up. They're running. They're like, get him some fresh air. And they brought him to the rotunda. They're opening the doors at the Capitol. They're trying to get fresh air in his face. Because of course, in 1848, when somebody's having a stroke, what do you do? But get them fresh air. That's what you knew how to do. They eventually relocated him to. the speaker's room and put him on a couch there. And he lapsed into a coma and died two days later in the United States House of Representatives. So he has a stroke while he's doing his job in Congress. They bring him into the retunda to get fresh air. They move him to an office where he stays for

two days. They don't try to bring him home. They don't take him to a hospital. He stays in the Capitol, in the United States Capitol, where he died. And then they had a funeral for him in the House chamber a few days later. And Louisa stayed in Washington, D.C. after his death, which felt more like home to her than Massachusetts did. And she died a few years later on a mild spring day in 1852 at the age of 77. On the day of her funeral, Congress took the unprecedented step to adjourn in order to honor the lifelong service she gave to the country. It was the first time in U.S. history that the federal government publicly acknowledged the death of a woman.

Thank you for joining me today, friends. I am so glad we're diving back into the lives of the first ladies together. I have so many fun. And that's fascinating stories to share with you. And I'll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. If you enjoyed today's episode, would you consider sharing or subscribing to this show that helps podcasters out so much? I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck Parks, and our audio producer is Craig Thompson. We'll see you soon.