Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27, 1918) was an American historian, journalist, author, intellectual, and prominent figure in high society in London and Washington, D.C. He was a member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. presidents. His views on matters of public concern were influential on the leading figures of his day, including John Hay, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Cabot Lodge, and his work has had enduring influence on the historiography of the United States and the academic discipline of history in the United States.
As a young Harvard graduate, he served as secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, Abraham Lincoln's minister to the United Kingdom. The posting influenced the younger man through the experience of wartime diplomacy and absorption in English culture, especially the works of John Stuart Mill. After the American Civil War, he became a political journalist who entertained America's foremost intellectuals at his homes in Washington and Boston.
During his lifetime, he was best known for The History of the United States of America 1801–1817, a nine-volume work, praised for its literary style, command of the documentary evidence, and deep knowledge of the period and its major figures. His memoir, The Education of Henry Adams, was published posthumously. It won the Pulitzer Prize and was named the best English-language nonfiction book of the 20th century by the Modern Library.
Biography
Early life and education Henry Brooks Adams was born in Boston on February 16, 1838 to Charles Francis Adams Sr. (1807–1886) and Abigail Brown Adams (1808–1889).Chambers Biographical Dictionary, , p. 6 Both his paternal grandfather, John Quincy Adams, and great-grandfather, John Adams, had been presidents of the United States, and his maternal grandfather, Peter Chardon Brooks, was one of the most successful merchants in Boston. He was the fourth of five children: Louisa Catherine (1831–70), John Quincy II (1833–94), Charles Jr. (1835–1915), and Brooks (1848–1927).
Adams among the first students at the Dixwell School. He graduated from Harvard College in 1858, after which he embarked on a grand tour of Europe, during which he also attended lectures in civil law at the University of Berlin.
At the 1893 Columbian Exposition, Adams was initiated as an honorary member of Phi Kappa Psi by Harris J. Ryan. Through that organization, he was also a member of the Irving Literary Society.
London (1861–1868) Adams returned home from Europe in the midst of the heated 1860 presidential election. He tried his hand at reading law, taking short-lived employment with Horace Gray in the firm known today as Ropes & Gray.Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), chapters 7–15, and Contosta, ch. 2. His father won re-election to the United States House of Representatives, and Henry joined him in Washington as his private secretary. Henry shouldered the responsibility reluctantly and with much self-doubt. "[I] had little to do", he reflected later, "and knew not how to do it rightly."The Education of Henry Adams, p. 101.
While in Washington, Adams worked anonymously as the Washington correspondent for Charles Hale's Boston Daily Advertiser.
On March 19, 1861, Abraham Lincoln appointed Charles Sr. as minister to the United Kingdom. Henry accompanied his father to London, where he also became the anonymous London correspondent for The New York Times. For the next four years, Charles Sr. was kept very busy by the necessity of maintaining British neutrality in the American Civil War, monitoring Confederate intrigues and obstructing the construction of Confederate commerce raiders and blockade runners in British shipyards. Henry's writings for the Times argued that Americans should be patient with the British.
While living in London, Adams befriended many noted men, including Charles Lyell, Francis Turner Palgrave, Richard Monckton Milnes, James Milnes Gaskell, and Charles Milnes Gaskell. He helped introduce the young Henry James to English society with the help of Charles Milnes Gaskell and his wife Catherine.Gamble, Cynthia 2008, John Ruskin, Henry James and the Shropshire Lads, London: New European Publications During this period, Adams was influenced by the works of John Stuart Mill, especially the 1861 book Considerations on Representative Government, which Adams believed showed the necessity of an enlightened elite to lead elected governments, which were susceptible to demagoguery, ignorance, and corruption. Henry wrote that Mill's writing showed, "[D]emocracy is still capable of rewarding a conscientious servant."Henry Adams quoted in Contosta, David R. (1980). Henry Adams and the American Experiment. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., p. 33.
Washington (186870) In 1868, Adams returned to the United States and settled in Washington, where he continued working as a journalist, seeking to expose political corruption and advance a vision of democratic idealism based on the values of the 17th and 18th centuries. As a result, Adams was an early critic of the excesses which would come to define the politics of the Gilded Age.
Harvard professor (187077) In 1870, Adams was appointed professor of medieval history at Harvard College. He held this position until his early retirement in 1877. As an academic historian, Adams is considered to have been the first (in 1874–1876) to conduct historical seminar work in the United States. His students included Henry Cabot Lodge, who also worked closely with Adams as a graduate student.
Adams was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1875. In 1892, he received the honorary degree LL.D., from Western Reserve University.
Marriage to Marian Hooper (187285)
On June 27, 1872, Adams married Marian Hooper, better known to friends as Clover, in Beverly, Massachusetts. They honeymooned in Europe, much of it with Charles Milnes Gaskell at Wenlock Abbey, Shropshire.Gamble, Cynthia, 2015 – Wenlock Abbey 1857–1919: A Shropshire Country House and the Milnes Gaskell Family, Ellingham Press. While there, exemplifying the New England civic conscience she and Henry shared, Clover wrote, "England is charming for a few families but hopeless for most ... Thank the Lord that the American eagle flaps and screams over us." Upon their return, Adams went back to his position at Harvard, and their home at 91 Marlborough Street in Boston became a gathering place for a lively intellectual circle. In 1877, the couple moved to Washington, D.C., where their home at 1607 H Street, across from the White House on Lafayette Square, became a center of social life in the capital city.
The couple had no children. They referred to themselves, along with John and Clara Hay and geologist and mountaineer Clarence King, as the "Five of Hearts."
Her suicide On the morning of December 6, 1885, after a late Sunday breakfast, Clover went to her room. Henry left to see his dentist regarding a toothache, but while departing the home, he was met by a woman visiting for his wife. Adams went upstairs to ask if she would receive the visitor and found his wife lying on a rug before the fire, an opened vial of potassium cyanide, which Clover had frequently used in processing photographs, lay nearby. Adams carried his wife to a sofa and ran for a doctor. Shortly thereafter, she was pronounced dead.Gurney, Ellen to Cabot, Mrs. James Eliott, January 1, 1886; Kaladin, Eugenia (1981). The Education of Mrs. Henry Adams. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, as quoted in Washington Critic, December 7–9, 1885, pp. 222–223.
A brief funeral service was held on December 9 at the Lafayette Square house. Only Henry, Charles Adams Jr., her siblings Edward and Ellen Hooper, and Ellen's husband Ephraim Gurney attended. Interment services followed at Rock Creek Cemetery, but the burial was postponed until December 11 because of inclement weather.Mills, C.J. (1996). The Adams Memorial and American Funerary Sculpture, 1891–1927. University of Maryland: Doctoral Dissertation, p. 26. A few weeks later, Adams ordered a modest headstone as a temporary marker.Mills (1996), p. 27. He later commissioned a monument for her tomb from Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who created a widely praised masterpiece, the untitled Adams Memorial, which marks the grave.
Much speculation and numerous theories have been given concerning the causes of Clover Adams's suicide. Her death has been attributed to depression over her father's deathMaureen Dowd, "Washington Journal", The New York Times, July 29, 1990. and a family history of depression and suicide. Posthumous speculation was made more difficult by Adams's destruction of most of Clover's letters and photos following her death.Kirstein, Lincoln (1989). Memorial to a Marriage. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 39. His memoir is profoundly silent about his wife after her suicide.
Relationship with Elizabeth Sherman Cameron
In January 1881, Adams met Elizabeth Sherman Cameron.Tehan, Arline Boucher (1983). Henry Adams in Love. New York: Universe Books, p. 53. She was the niece of Treasury secretary John Sherman and general William Tecumseh Sherman and considered one of the most beautiful and intelligent women in Washington. She had married Pennsylvania senator J. Donald Cameron, twenty-four years her senior, in 1878 in an arranged marriage which included a prenuptial agreement that provided her income from $160,000 worth of securities (approximately $ in ).Tehan (1983), p. 51. Cameron's six children from a previous marriage never accepted their young stepmother, and the marriage was further strained by Cameron's coarse indifference toward his young wife, his fondness for bourbon, and his reputation for political corruption, which Adams's satirized in his novel Democracy.
On May 19, 1883, Adams initiated a correspondence with Mrs. Cameron, when she and her husband departed for Europe. That letter reflected his unhappiness with her departure and his longing for her return.Tehan (1983), pp. 68–69. Adams sent Cameron hundreds of letters over the remainder of his life, recording a passionate yet unconsummated relationship. On December 7, 1884, one year before his wife's suicide, Adams wrote, "I shall dedicate my next poem to you. I shall have you carved over the arch of my stone doorway. I shall publish your volume of extracts with your portrait on the title page. None of these methods can fully express the extent to which I am yours."Kaladin (1981), p. 153.
Clover Adams, who maintained a weekly intimate correspondence with her father for most of her life, never referenced concerns or suspicions of a romantic relationship between Adams and Cameron. Neither Clover's family nor friends indicated that she distrusted or was unhappy with her husband. After her death, Henry preserved and cherished an unsent letter by Clover to her sister Ellen which read, "If I had one single point of character or goodness, I would stand on that and grow back to life. Henry is more patient and loving than words can express—God might envy him—he bears and hopes and despairs hour after hour—Henry is beyond all words tenderer and better than all of you even."Kaladin (1981), p. 224.
On Christmas 1885, Adams sent one of Clover's favorite pieces of jewelry to Cameron, requesting that she "sometimes wear it, to remind you of her."Samuels, Ernest, "Henry Adams. 3 volumes" Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1947–64, p. 237.
Later life and travels