Herbert Baxter Adams (April 16, 1850 – July 30, 1901) was an American educator and historian who brought German rigor to the study of history and social science in America. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University.

He was a founding member of the American Historical Association, and one of the earliest American educators using the seminar for teaching history. With a fresh PhD from the Heidelberg University in Germany, Johns Hopkins University brought Adams in as a teaching fellow in history during their inaugural year. Adams stayed with Johns Hopkins until his health failed.

On his mother's side, he was a descendant of Thomas Hastings who came from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. In 1880, he published a privately printed genealogy: History of the Thomas Adams and Thomas Hastings families, of Amherst, Massachusetts.

Herbert B. Adams received his early training in the Amherst, Massachusetts public schools followed by Phillips Exeter Academy. He graduated from Amherst College, with an AB in 1872 and AM in 1875.

Career

The new Johns Hopkins University, which opened in 1876, wanted to bring German-style graduate education to the United States. Adams was hired as fellow in history from 1876 to 1878, associate from 1878 to 1883, and was appointed associate professor in 1883. He is credited with bringing the study of history into the realm of the social sciences: "Adams, with his German training, was determined to inaugurate through the seminar system the scientific study of history based on careful, critical examination of the sources. He hoped to make the study of history an independent professional pursuit rather than a mere branch of literature."

From 1878 to 1881 Adams was also a lecturer in history at Smith College. He was then a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, from 1881 to 1886.

At Johns Hopkins, in 1880, Adams began his famous seminar in history, where a large proportion of the next generation of American historians trained. Among his students were Woodrow Wilson, Thomas Dixon, Jr., John Dewey, and Charles McLean Andrews. In 1882 Adams founded the "Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science," He brought about the organization in 1884 of the American Historical Association, for which he was secretary until 1900, when he resigned and was made first vice president. His historical writings introduced scientific methods of investigation that influenced many historians, including Frederick Jackson Turner and John Spencer Bassett. He authored Life and Writings of Jared Sparks (2 vols., 1893)

Last years

Adams was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1886. He received the degree LL.D. from the University of Alabama in 1891, and from Amherst in 1899.

  • The Herbert Baxter Adams Professorship at Johns Hopkins University was created in his honor.

References

Attribution

Further reading

  • Cunningham, Raymond. “Historian among the Librarians: Herbert Baxter Adams and Modern Librarianship.” The Journal of Library History. 21, no. 4 (1986): 704–22.
  • Cunningham, Raymond. "'Scientia Pro Patria': Herbert Baxter Adams and Mugwump Academic Reform at Johns Hopkins, 1876-1901." Prospects (1990), Vol. 15, pp 109–144.
  • Herbert Baxter Adams papers, 1850-1901, at Johns Hopkins University.
  • "Herbert B. Adams," by John Martin Vincent, in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1901, Vol. 1, pp. 197–210.
  • Descendants of Thomas Hastings website
  • Descendants of Thomas Hastings on Facebook
  • Descendants of Henry Adams of Braintree