(From left) Ann Louise McLaughlin, retired senior editor; Aida D. Donald, assistant director and editor-in-chief; and John F. Walsh, assistant director/design and production manager have had a hand in the publication of the Adams papers. Photo by Rose Lincoln.

Abigail Adams made an early plea for women's rights to her husband, John Adams of Massachusetts, as the Continental Congress was considering independence from Britain in 1776:

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency," she wrote in March of that year, "and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could."

Women's rights and the birth of a nation are just two subjects in the enormous scope of the Adams Papers, a 250,000-page collection of letters, diaries, and public papers of President John Adams, Abigail Adams, their son, John Quincy Adams, who became the country's sixth president, and other members of the Adams clan.

The Adams Papers, owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society, are being published by the Harvard University Press in an ongoing, decades-long project that could stretch to more than 100 volumes. Publication began in 1961 with four volumes of the Diary and Autobiography of John Adams. Thirty-six volumes have been published so far.

"The Adams family is probably America's First Family," said Aida Donald, assistant director and editor in chief of the Harvard University Press. "John Adams was a Founding Father. He had a brilliant son who was not only president but who was distinguished in many other ways."

Publishing the writings of two U.S. presidents is an enormous job, but one that Harvard University Press relishes.

And it doesn't hurt that both men were Harvard graduates.

"We're very happy to be involved. It's one of the grandest publishing projects in the history of the United States," said John Walsh, the Press' assistant director for design and production.

Editors at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston agree. A staff of editors has been toiling over the papers since they were given to the Society by the Adams family in 1956.

The collection spans the years 1753 through 1889. It includes the papers of three generations of Adamses, ending with those of Charles Francis Adams, son of John Quincy Adams and a diplomat and editor. Together, the writings not only chronicle much of the nation's early history, but they provide one of the longest and most complete views of the life of an American family ‹ albeit an extraordinary one ‹ during the late 18th and 19th centuries.

"I don't think there's a collection like this anywhere in the U.S. that has so many people involved in so many prominent events in the founding of the republic and in the next 100 years," said Celeste Walker, associate editor for the Adams Papers at the Historical Society. "Our main concern is to provide an accurate text. We take pains in determining what we should publish."

The earliest volume is a diary of John Adams and begins in 1753, when he was 17. The diary was discovered in 1965 among the papers of Royall Tyler of Vermont, a suitor of Adams' daughter.

The Royall Tyler collection is not the only place editors have found additional Adams papers. They've collected thousands of documents from collections around the world for inclusion in the published volumes.

Lawyer, Revolutionary, Leader

The Adams Papers cover John Adams' career as a lawyer, his life as a revolutionary thinker and leader, as an American diplomat in Europe after the Revolution, and as the nation's first vice president and second president. The correspondence continues after his presidency, with regular letters to Thomas Jefferson, a relationship that continued until the death of both men on July 4, 1826 ‹ the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Though he served as the nation's sixth president, John Quincy Adams' lesser known careers may be where he shone brightest. He served as the U.S. secretary of state under James Monroe before becoming president, helping formulate the Monroe Doctrine and crafting the Treaty of Spain, through which the United States gained Florida and an agreement that the boundary between the United States and Mexico would run from the Gulf of Mexico to the Rocky Mountains and then to the Pacific Ocean along a line south of Oregon.

John Quincy Adams was the only U.S. president to take office without winning a majority of either the popular or the electoral college vote. He was selected by the U.S. House of Representatives over Andrew Jackson and William Crawford after none of the three gained a majority in the 1824 election.

After his presidency, Adams served as a U.S. representative for 18 years, the only president to serve in Congress after leaving the White House. He defended the slave ship Amistad 's captive Africans before the U.S. Supreme Court, helping win their freedom and their eventual return to their homeland. He died in the House chamber in 1848.

Though some parts of the collection have been published before, that isn't the case for the diary of John Quincy Adams' son, Charles Francis Adams, editor-in-chief Donald said. Charles Adams was minister to England during the Civil War. He persuaded England, which was pro-South, to remain neutral during the conflict.

Not Yet Halfway

Publication is continuing chronologically on three tracks: diaries, family correspondence, and public papers of the statesmen.

With 36 volumes of the Adams Papers already published, the editors say they're not yet at the halfway point. The editors are reluctant to estimate how long it will take to publish the entire collection, but that final volume is still decades away, they say.

Scholars won't have such a long wait for the next installment, though. Two volumes of John Quincy Adams' diary are expected out next year.

"We're trying to give a full picture of these people, their times, their achievements, and the context of their lives," said Richard Ryerson, editor in chief of the Adams Papers for the Historical Society. "We edit without changing spelling, capitalization, and punctuation to give a better flavor of the writer's education, of their idiosyncrasies, and even of regional dialect."

Though the collection is owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society, its publication is a joint venture, with publication costs being borne by the Harvard University Press. The Press publishes the volumes under its most prestigious imprint, Belknap Press.

The set published in 1996, two volumes of Papers of John Adams, costs $125. The Press typically sells between 600 and 800 copies over several years, though it has sold thousands of copies of the more popular volumes.

Buyers are mostly libraries and other institutions. Users of the collections range a bit more broadly, from history buffs to family genealogists to scholars researching everything from life in the 17th and 18th centuries to thoughts of the Founding Fathers on the Constitution.

Scholars don't have to wait on the steps of the Harvard University Press for the next volume, however. Those with a pressing need to see the documents can refer to the microfilm version of the collection, on 608 reels, at about 90 libraries in the United States and elsewhere.

Though John Adams' papers have been compiled in the past, the volumes being published by the Harvard University Press will be the most complete, according to the editors, who say they are publishing the complete diaries and many letters that have never before been published. Though not every letter will be published, each that is left out will be listed to make a complete reference source.

"In volumes five and six of the family correspondences, we published 450 letters. Only 115 had been published before in any form," the Historical Society's Ryerson said. "The most important thing is to present in full the words of the Adamses and, more generally, the words of the founders of the nation."