James Truslow Adams

James Truslow Adams (October 18, 1878 – May 18, 1949) was an American writer and historian. He was not related to the famous Adams family (though he wrote a book about the family in 1930). He was not an academic, but a freelance author who helped to popularize the latest scholarship about American history and his three volume history of New England is well regarded by scholars.

Early life

Adams was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a wealthy family, the son of Elizabeth Harper (née Truslow) and William Newton Adams, Jr. His father had been born in Caracas, Venezuela. His paternal grandfather was American and his paternal grandmother was of Spanish Venezuelan descent.^[1][2][3] Adams took his bachelor's degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1898, and a MA degree from Yale University in 1900. He entered investment banking, rising to partner in a New York Stock Exchange member firm. In 1912, he considered his savings ample enough to switch his to a career as a writer.

In 1917, he served with Colonel House on President Wilson's commission, "The Inquiry", to prepare data for the Paris Peace Conference. By 1918, he was a Captain in the Military Intelligence division of the General Staff, US Army. By late 1918, he was selected for the US delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. His main task consisted in the provision of maps and the selection of plans and atlases, which should be acquired by the War College, the American Geographical Society, and the Library of Congress.

Writer

Adams gained national attentions with his trilogy on the history of New England (1921–26), winning the Pulitzer Prize for the first volume. Scholars welcomed his social history of the colonial era, Provincial Society, 1690-1763 (1927). He wrote popular books and magazine articles in a steady stream. His Epic of America was an international bestseller. He was also the editor of a scholarly multi-volume Dictionary of American History.^[4] Adams was the editor, with Roy V. Coleman as managing editor, of The Atlas of American History (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943), and The Album of American History, 4 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1944).

American Dream

Adams coined the term "American Dream" in his 1931 book The Epic of America. His American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

Two educations

A quote from one of Adams' essays "There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live" is widely mis-attributed to John Adams. The quote is part of an essay by Adams entitled ‘To “Be” or to “Do”: A Note on American Education’ which appeared in the June, 1929 issue of Forum. The essay is very critical of American education, both in school and at the university level, and explores the role of American culture and class-consciousness in forming that system of education.

In a more complete version of that quote, Adams says: "There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live. Surely these should never be confused in the mind of any man who has the slightest inkling of what culture is. For most of us it is essential that we should make a living...In the complications of modern life and with our increased accumulation of knowledge, it doubtless helps greatly to compress some years of experience into far fewer years by studying for a particular trade or profession in an institution; but that fact should not blind us to another—namely, that in so doing we are learning a trade or a profession, but are not getting a liberal education as human beings."

Honors

Adams lived in Southport, Connecticut, and died May 18, 1949.

After 1930 he was active in the American Academy of Arts and Letters serving as both chancellor and treasurer of that organization. He was also a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Massachusetts Historical Society, American Antiquarian Society, American Historical Association, and the American Philosophical Society. Among British societies he was honored as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Bibliography

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: James Truslow Adams

Wikisource has original works written by or about: James Truslow Adams

• The Founding of New England (1921) Pulitzer Prize for History

Full text available at full text in Google Books

• Revolutionary New England (1923)
• New England in the Republic (1926)
• Provincial Society (1690-1763) (1927)
• Our Business Civization (1929)
• The Adams Family (1930)
• The Epic of America (1931). Simon Publications 2001 paperback: ISBN 1-931541-33-7
• The March of Democracy (2 vols. 1932-1933)
• Justice Without (1933)
• Henry Adams (1933)

Adams wrote 21 monographs between 1916 and 1945. He was also editor in chief of the Dictionary of American History, The Atlas of American History, and other volumes.

Secondary sources

• McCracken, M. J., comp. "Another Bibliography of James Truslow Adams." Bulletin of Bibliography 15 (May 1934):65-68.
• Nevins, Allan. James Truslow Adams: Historian of the American Dream. (1968)
• Porter, K. W. "Negro in American Life: A Reply to J.T. Adams' Interpretation in His Book The American." Journal of Negro History 29 (April 1944):209-20.
• Taylor, C. James. "James Truslow Adams." In Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 17: Twentieth-Century American Historians, 3-8. Ed. by Clyde N. Wilson. Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Company, 1983.
• Who's Who on the Web, s.v. "Adams, James Truslow" (n.p.: Marquis Who's Who, 2005)
• Library of Congress Website
• To "Be" or to "DO" by JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS;Forum (1886-1930); Jun 1929; VOL. LXXXI, NO. 6,; APS Online, pg. 321

References