American historian, son of Charles Francis Adams and grandson of John Quincy Adams, born in Boston, MA, on the 16th of February 1838. He graduated at Harvard in 1858, and from 1861 to 1868 was private secretary to his father. From 1870 to 1877 he was assistant professor of history at Harvard and from 1870 to 1876 was editor of the North American Review. He is considered to have been the first (in 1874–1876) to conduct historical seminary work in the United States. His great work is his History of the United States (1801 to 1817) (9 vols., 1889–1891), which is incomparably the best work yet published dealing with the administrations of Presidents Jefferson and Madison. It is particularly notable for its account of the diplomatic relations of the United States during this period, and for its essential impartiality. Adams also published Life of Albert Gallatin (1879), John Randolph (1882) in the “American Statesmen Series,” and Historical Essays (1891); besides editing Documents Relating to New England Federalism (1877), and the Writings of Albert Gallatin (3 volumes, 1879). In collaboration with his elder brother Charles Francis Adams, Jr., he published Chapters of Erie and Other Essays (1871), and, with H. C. Lodge, Ernest Young and J. L. Laughlin, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law (1876). In 1910 his Letter to American Teachers of History appeared, and in 1911 his Life of George Cabot Lodge. In 1913 his Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (privately printed in 1904) was published by authority of the American Institute of Architects, a scholarly interpretation of the architecture and literature of the medieval Church. In 1918 his autobiographical The Education of Henry Adams (privately printed in 1906) was issued for the public. No book of its decade evoked more discussion in America. In 1919 The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma (consisting of several essays previously published together with one hitherto unpublished) was issued, with an introduction by his brother, Brooks Adams. He died in Washington, DC, on the 27th of May 1918. See also “The Auspices of the War of 1812,” “What the War of 1812 Demonstrated” and “The Battle between the Constitution and the Guerrière.”
