Background
Herbert Adams was born Jan. 28, 1858, at Concord, Vermont, United States. The son of Samuel M. and Nancy (Powers) Adams.
Herbert Adams was born Jan. 28, 1858, at Concord, Vermont, United States. The son of Samuel M. and Nancy (Powers) Adams.
Herbert Adams studied first in the United States with Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and later in Paris. He entered Amherst College in 1868 and initially showed interest in journalism, editing the college newspaper and occasionally reporting for papers in Amherst, Boston, and New York. He received his doctorate from Heidelberg in 1876, having already accepted a position at the newly established Johns Hopkins University, where he would remain until his death. The university was to be a research institution where graduate-level instruction using the seminar method would be available for advanced students.
Although Adams made impressive monuments, he is best known for his work in smaller forms: bronze doors for the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. , and St. Bartholomew's Church, New York City, garden sculpture, and portrait busts of John Marshall, William Cullen Bryant, and others.
By its few details, delicate modeling, and serene content, his work recalls Italian Renaissance sculpture.
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.
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.
He died on July 30, 1901.
Herbert Adams was married to Adeline Valentine Pond.