ADAMS, HENRY (1838-1918), American historian, son of Charles Francis Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams, was born in Boston, Mass., on Feb. 16, 1838. He graduated at Har vard in 1858, studied abroad, and was private secretary to his father when the latter was a congressman and minister to England. Thereafter for a brief time he did political writing in Washington; and from 187o to 1877 he was assistant professor of history at Harvard, for most of the period also acting as editor of the North American Review. He is considered to have been the first to conduct historical seminary work in the United States. His History of the United States from 1801 to 1817 (9 vols. 1889-91, new ed. 1909) took its place as the best work on the administra tions of Presidents Jefferson and Madison, being specially notable for its account of the diplomatic relations of the United States during this period, and for its essential impartiality. This, like his other historical and biographical works such as the Life of Albert Gallatin (1879), John Randolph (1882), Historical Essays (1891), and Chapters of Erie and Other Essays (1871, with Charles Francis Adams, Jr.), won him a reputation among scholars. His Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1913, privately printed 1904) and The Education of Henry Adams (1918, pri vately printed 1906) revealed him to a much wider audience as a writer of delicate sensibilities and refined taste. Mont Saint Michel and Chartres is one of the most valuable studies of medi aevalism yet produced in America, not only for the aid which it affords in the appreciation of the literary and architectural monu ments of the past, but for the conception which it gives of the animating forces which produced these monuments. The auto biography which attempted to show how ill-adapted eighteenth century man and education were for the needs of the twentieth century was one of the most widely discussed books of its decade in America. Correlating with these books to a certain extent was Adams's Letter to American Teachers of History (1 910). He died in Washington on May 27, 1918. Posthumous publications were The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma (Ion), with an introduction by Brooks Adams) and Letters to a Niece and Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres by Henry Adams, with A Niece's Memories by Mabel La Farge (1920). After his death he was named by Henry Holt as the author of Democracy, an anonymous novel of 1880.
His elder brother, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (1833-1894), a grad uate of Harvard (1853), practised law, and was for several terms a Democratic member of the Massachusetts general court. In 1872 he was nominated for vice president by the Democratic faction that refused to support Horace Greeley.
Another brother, CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR. (1835-1915), born in Boston, on May 27, 1835, graduated at Harvard in 1856, and was admitted to the bar in 1858. During the Civil War he served on the Union side, receiving, in 1865, the brevet of brigadier general. He was president of the Union Pacific railroad from 1884-90, having previously become widely known as an authority on the management of railways. In 190o-0r he was president of the American Historical Association. He died in Washington, D.C., on March 20, 1915. His autobiography was published in 1916 with a memorial address by Henry Cabot Lodge.
Among his writings are: Railroads, Their Origin and Problems (rev. ed. 1887) ; Three Episodes of Massachusetts History (1892) ; a biog raphy of his father, Charles Francis Adams (Igoo) ; Lee at Appomat tox and Other Papers (1902) ; Three Phi Beta Kappa Addresses (1907); Studies Military and Diplomatic 1775-1865 ; and Atlantic Historical Solidarity (1913), lectures delivered at Oxford.
Another brother, BROOKS ADAMS was born in Quincy, Mass., on June 24, 1848, graduated at Harvard in 187o, and until 1881 practised law. He died in Boston, Feb. 13, 1927.
His writings include: The Emancipation of Massachusetts: The Dream and tke Reality (rev. ed. 1919) ; The Law of Civilization and Decay (1895) ; America's Economic Supremacy (19oo) ; and The New Empire (1902).