On 27 June 1809, President James Madison appointed John Quincy Adams (JQA) minister plenipotentiary to Russia. On 5 August 1809, JQA set sail for St. Petersburg. In addition to writing long entries in one of his diary volumes, JQA also summarized each day of his trip in his line-a-day diary volume. Since 5 August 2009, the Massachusetts Historical Society has been posting John Quincy Adams's line-a-day diary entries on Twitter, exactly 200 years after his journey across the Atlantic.
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JQA Twitter Project http://twitter.com/JQAdams_MHS
Read John Quincy Adams's posts on Twitter. (Twitter posts appear under the user name, JQAdams_MHS.)John Quincy Adams's Diaries
- Web presentation of JQA's line-a-day diary
- Web presentation of JQA's diary with long entries beginning August 1809
- The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection
Digital images of 51 diary volumes kept by John Quincy Adams from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The diary can be searched by date or by using the detailed timeline. - Overview to JQA's diaries
Includes scope notes about diary volumes, descriptions of different types of diary entries written by JQA, and provides citations to published selections of his diary. - Published edition (volume 2) includes selected diary entries beginning
August 1809
Online access from the Internet Archive to published edition of selected long diary entries Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848, volume 2, edited by Charles Francis Adams, (Philadelphia, 1874).
John Quincy Adams's Shipboard Reading Lists
- These blog posts list the books John Quincy Adams mentions in his
line-a-day diary entries and provides links to online copies
of the titles.
August 1809 | September 1809 | October 1809 | November/December 1809
John Quincy Adams in Russia
- "The First Ambassador: John Quincy Adams in St. Petersburg, 1809-1815" (http://www.russianlife.com/pdf/adamsinrussia.pdf)
This article written by Mary Claffey and Sara Sikes (both authors are Assistant Editors for the Adams Papers Editorial Project) appeared in Russian Life, September/October 2008. This article describes JQA's successful diplomatic mission in Russia as well as his life at Court with his wife, Louisa Catherine and young son, Charles Francis.
The Beehive Blog Posts about the JQA Twitter Project
- Was JQA a Tweeter?
This blog post describes JQA's numerous diaries and likens the short entries within his line-a-day diary to posts to the micro-blogging website, Twitter. - To Russia With Tweets
This blog post from 16 July 2009 announces Massachusetts Historical Society's plans to post JQA's line-a-day diary entries on Twitter, beginning on 5 August 2009, 200 years after he started his journey to St. Petersburg, Russia. - John Quincy Adams, Media Darling
This blog post includes links to online articles and video clips from the press describing the JQA Twitter project, as well as comments from Twitterers, and a quote from Louisa Catherine Adams (John Quincy Adams's wife) about the anguish she felt about the prospect of leaving two of her children in the United States when she accompanied her husband to Russia.
Selected Media Coverage about the JQAdams_MHS Twitter Project
- "John Quincy Adams, Twitterer?," New York Times
- "John Quincy Adams Tweeting Thanks to Mass. Society," Associated Press
- "John Quincy Adams on Twitter," Here and Now, Wednesday, August 5, 2009 (audio)
- "Twitter Twacked!" The Rachel Maddow Show, August 6, 2009 (audio)
- "Tweets from John Quincy Adams," ABC World News Webcast, August 17, 2009 (video)
