Frances Adeline Seward was the First Lady of New York and the wife of William Henry Seward, a senator in the New York legislature, Governor of New York, a senator from New York and United States Secretary of State under President Abraham Lincoln.

William Henry Seward was an American politician who served as United States Secretary of State from 1861 to 1869, and earlier served as governor of New York and as a United States senator. A determined opponent of the spread of slavery in the years leading up to the American Civil War, he was a prominent figure in the Republican Party in its formative years, and was praised for his work on behalf of the Union as Secretary of State during the Civil War. He also negotiated the treaty for the United States to purchase the Alaska Territory.