Background

Franklin Pierce Adams was born as Franklin Leopold Adams on November 15, 1881 in Chicago, Illinois, United States to Moses and Clara Schlossberg Adams. His middle name was changed to "Pierce" at the age of 13, after a Jewish confirmation ceremony.

Education

In 1899, Adams graduated from the Armour Scientific Academy and later enrolled at the University of Michigan, which he attended for a year.

Career

Adams’ newspaper career began in 1903, with the Chicago Journal. The next year he went to New York, where he wrote for several newspapers. From 1913 to 1937 his column, “The Conning Tower,” appeared in the Herald Tribune and several other New York newspapers, interrupted only during the years of World War I, when Adams wrote a column for Stars and Stripes, and from 1923 to 1931, when he worked for the New York World until it ceased publication. Witty and well-written, his columns consisted of informal yet careful critiques of the contemporary U.S. scene. His column also included writing by such authors as Dorothy Parker and Sinclair Lewis. His Saturday columns imitated the language and style of Samuel Pepys’ diary, and Adams is credited with a renewal of interest in Pepys. Reprints were collected in The Diary of Our Own Samuel Pepys (1935).

Adams’ poetry is light and conventionally rhymed. His verse is collected in 10 volumes, beginning with Tobogganning on Parnassus (1911); the final volume, The Melancholy Lute (1936), is Adams’ selection from 30 years of his writing.

In 1938, Adams became one of the panel of experts on the radio show “Information, Please.”

He died on March 23, 1960, New York City, United States

Achievements

• Franklin Pierce Adams was known for his wit and humorous writing style. He authored the column, ‘The Conning Tower’, a satirical column that became immensely popular with readers. He began his career in journalism with the 'Chicago Journal' and later wrote for 'New York Evening Mail', where he contributed for the column ‘Always in Good Humor’. One of his best-known works for the New York Evening Mail was the 'Baseball's Sad Lexicon', a poem on baseball. In a career spanning more than forty years as a successful daily columnist in a New York newspaper, Pierce Adams had the prolific writing skills that amused a large audience. He managed to create a name for himself and became well acquainted with everyone in the literary world.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Bon Bons, Bourbon and Bon Mots: Stories from the Algonquin Round Table
  • Weights and Measures
  • Tobogganing on Parnassus
  • In Cupid's Court (Classic Reprint)
  • Something Else Again
  • In Other Words
  • Overset
  • Among Us Mortals: Pictures and Legends by W.E. Hill
  • By and Large
  • The Conning Tower Book
  • Women I'm Not Married to
  • Something Else Again
  • Among Us Mortals

Views

He hated free verse and was never slow in expressing this opinion.

Quotations: "I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way."

"To err is human; to forgive, infrequent."

"Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody."

Membership

In the 1920s and 1930s, he became a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a highly praised and intellectual group of writers, actors, critics in New York City.

Connections

In 1904, Franklin married his first wife, Minna Schwartze. He later married Esther Sayles Root in 1925.

Father:

Moses Adams

Mother:

Clara Schlossberg Adams

Spouse:

Minna Schwartze

Spouse:

Esther Sayles Root

References

• F.P.A.: The Life and Times of Franklin Pierce Adams