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

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.