James Truslow Adams

James Truslow Adams (October 18, 1878 - May 18, 1949) was an American 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, and his three volume history of New England is well regarded by scholars.

Life and work

Adams was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 18, 1878. He took his bachelor's degree from the Polytechnical Institute of Brooklyn in 1898, and a masters from Yale University in 1900. Thereafter, he entered investment banking, being in the employ of a New York Stock Exchange member firm until 1912.

In 1917, he served with Colonel House on the President's commission 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.

It is not clear how Adams supported himself after the war except by writing.

During his life he was a member of 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. Adams lived in Southport, CT, and died May 18, 1949

He died after a heart attack.

Bibliography

Chronological list of all the monographic works by J. T. Adams

• Some Notes on the Currency Problem. New York: Press of the Broun-Green Comp., 1908. (Written when he was a manager at Lindley & Co., N.Y. City; it is about the origin of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, 1908.)
• Speculation and the Reform of the New York Stock Exchange. Summit, N.J.: The Summit Herald Press, 1913. [Written when he was a manager at Lindley & Co., N.Y. City; he supported a more efficient control of the New York Stock Exchange, of the books and practices of its members.)
• Memorials of Old Bridgehampton. Bridgehampton, N.Y.: Printed Privately at the Press of the Bridgehampton News, 1916. (Reprint: Port Washington, N.Y.: Ira J. Friedman, 1962.)
• An Address Delivered upon Founder's Day before the Colonial Society of Southampton, Long Island, June 12, 1917. [N.p.] Printed privately.
• History of the Town of Southampton, East of Canoe Place. Bridgehampton, N.Y.: Hampton Press, 1918. (Reprint: Port Washington, N.Y.: Ira J. Friedman, 1962.)
• Notes on the Families of Truslow, Horler, and Horley from English Records. Bridgehampton, N.Y.: Privately Printed, 1920. (Only forty copies were printed.)
• The Founding of New England. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1921. Online edition (Reprint: Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1963.)
• Revolutionary New England, 1691-1776. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1923. Online edition
• Rhode Island's Part in Making America: An Address Delivered at Rhode Island College of Education. State of Rhode Island. Public Education Service, Providence, 1923.
• New England in the Republic, 1776-1850. Boston: Little, Brown, 1926. Online edition (Reprint: Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1960.)
• Provincial Society, 1690-1763. History of American Life, ed. by Dixon R. Fox and Arthur M. Schlesinger, vol. 3. New York: Macmillan, 1927.
• Our Business Civilization: Some Aspects of American Culture. New York: A. and C. Boni, 1929. [Collected essays; the British edition was published with the title A Searchlight on America. With an Introduction by Douglas Woodruff. London: G. Routledge and Sons, 1930.)
• The Adams Family. Boston: Little, Brown, 1930. (Reprints: Oxford University Press, 1932; Blue Ribbon Books, 1933; Hillary House, 1957.)
• The Epic of America. Illustrated by M. J.Gallagher. Boston: Little. Brown, 1931. New edition, 1933. (There were several translations: German (1933), French (1933), Danish (1935), Italian (1937), Swedish (1939), Portuguese (Brazil) (1940), Spanish (Argentina) (1942), Netherlandish (1946), Hebrew (1947), and Hungarian (in the 1940s). Many reprints.)
• The Tempo of Modern Life. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1931. (Collected essays.)
• The March of Democracy: A History of the United States. 2 vols. Vol. 1: The Rise of the Union; vol. 2: From Civil War to World Power. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932-33. (There are some textual differences between two-volume edition and the four-volume subscriber's edition, which contains the same illustrations, but also an appendix with additional illustrations with comments [by an unknown author?]; this edition was completed by Jacob E. Cooke, et al., in three more volumes, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1966. The British edition appeared with the title History of the American People, London: G. Routledge, 1933.)
• America's Opportunity, How We Lost It and How We May Regain It. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1932.
• Henry Adams. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1933. (The "Bibliography of the Writings of Henry Adams", 213-29, was compiled by the former head of the Houghton Library, William A. Jackson.)
• America's Tragedy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1934. (A history of slavery and the South's secession.)
• With Charles G. Vannest. The Record of America. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935. (A textbook; there were later expanded editions.)
• The Living Jefferson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936.
• With Charles G. Vannest. Workbook for "The Record of America". New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936.
• An Historian Looks at the Supreme Court [...] Over Mutual Broadcasting System from Station WOR, New York, March 8th, 1937 [...]. Rochester, N.Y.: National Committee to Uphold Constitutional Government, 1937.
• Building the British Empire: To the End of the First Empire. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938.
• America Looks at the British Empire. New York: Farrar and Rhinehart, 1940. (British edition entitled An American Looks at the British Empire. London: Oxford University Press, 1941.)
• Empire on the Seven Seas: The British Empire, 1784-1939. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940.
• The American: The Making of a New Man. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943.
• Frontiers of American Culture: A Study of Adult Education in a Democracy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1944.
• Big Business in a Democracy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1945.

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. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1968. (On pages 1 to 102, Allan Nevins gave a sometimes superficial and not very accurate biography of his late friend with the title "The Busy Career of James Truslow Adams: A Personal Memoir"; the second and more extensive part of the book presents the "Selected Correspondence of James Truslow Adams".)
• 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.