Four Famous American Women Who Were Also Prolific Letter Writers

In a long and storied tradition, these bold women recorded history—and shaped it—through their correspondence

Sonja Anderson | Daily Correspondent

September/October 2025

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Abigail Adams

Abigail exchanged well over 1,000 letters with her husband, John Adams, America’s second president. Intimate and political, their correspondence tracks the founding of the United States, with Abigail advocating for the rights of American women. She famously urged John to “remember the ladies” and pressed for greater equality in the home, writing to her husband: “Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.”

Harriet Jacobs

Before her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, became famous, Jacobs, born into slavery in North Carolina in 1813, was known for eloquent letters to abolitionists and newspaper editors. One of her pen pals was the abolitionist Amy Post, with whom Jacobs discussed her work on the memoir: “Just now the poor book is in its chrysalis state and though I can never make it a butterfly I am satisfied to have it creep meekly among some of the humbler bugs.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

A stateswoman in her own right, Roosevelt maintained consequential correspondences with politicians throughout her life—including several of her husband’s successors as president. She recommended political appointments and was resolute in advising President Harry S. Truman about global affairs post-World War II, cautioning in 1948: “No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.” 

Zora Neale Hurston

Hurston is best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, but her personal letters offer honest, passionate, complex opinions on race and sometimes a frank rage that she didn’t show in public. As she wrote in a 1943 letter to fellow writer Countee Cullen about lynchings: “Either we must do something about it that the white man will understand and respect, or shut up. No whiner ever got any respect or relief.”

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Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in Chicago.