Herbert Baxter Adams was an American historian and teacher. He was important in establishing of the professional study of history in American universities.
Background
Ethnicity:
On 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.
Herbert Baxter Adams was born on April 16, 1850 in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, United States, the son of a successful merchant and manufacturer Nathaniel Dickinson Adams and his wife Harriet Hastings Adams.
Education
In 1868 Herbert entered Amherst College and initially showed interest in journalism, editing the college newspaper and occasionally reporting for papers in Amherst, Boston, and New York. However, hearing one lecture during his senior year changed his mind and made him decide to study history. Between 1874 and 1876 he attended lectures in Germany at the University of Göttingen and Heidelberg University. He received his doctorate from Heidelberg in 1876.
Career
Adams began his career, working as a teacher for one year, but he knew that the pursuit of his goal required foreign study, and so he left for Heidelberg and Berlin.
In 1876 he joined the newly established Johns Hopkins University, where he would remain until his death, holding several posts there - a fellow from 1876 to 1878, associate from 1878 till 1883 and associate professor in 1883. It is not coincidental that Adams began his career at the same time that Johns Hopkins opened its doors, for the educational goals of the man and the institution were identical. The university was to be a research institution where graduate-level instruction using the seminar method would be available for advanced students. 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.
In 1881 Adams was put in charge of the Historical Seminary, the institution for the training of advanced students, in which he supervised several men who were to become famous historians. In 1882 he issued the first number of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, which he founded so that scholars at the university could publish the results of their research. He continued as editor for 18 years.
As a historian, Adams specialized in the study of local political institutions of America's colonial period. He tried to show the derivation of these institutions from German and English models – an approach usually called the "germ theory" of American politics. His primary role, however, was as a teacher, editor, and organizer. After 1883 he did not publish any of his own scholarly work in history except for a biography of the American historian Jared Sparks in 1893. After 1884 he was secretary of the American Historical Association, of which he was the leading founder and the effective executive head until declining health forced him to resign in 1900.
He was also a contributor to annual reports of Smithsonian Institution and American Historical Association, as well as an editor of the book series “Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science.” He was a contributor to periodicals, including Chautauqua Assembly-Herald, Forum, Nation, Papers of the American Historical Association, and Science: An Illustrated Journal. Editor, Contributions to American Educational History, 1887-1901.
Membership
Adams was a founding member of the American Historical Association.
Personality
While his own scholarship and criticism were relatively undistinguished, his enthusiasm and interest were highly influential on his students, among them the future U. S. president Woodrow Wilson and the eminent historian Frederick Jackson Turner.
Quotes from others about the person
“If I were to sum up my impression of Dr. Adams, I should call him a great Captain of Industry, a captain in the field of systematic and organized scholarship... The thesis work done under him may fairly be said to have set the pace for university work in history throughout the United States.” - Woodrow Wilson