Samuel Hopkins Adams
Personal Information
Description
Adams was born in Dunkirk, New York. Adams was a muckraker, known for exposing public-health injustices. He was the son of Myron Adams, Jr., a minister, and Hester Rose Hopkins. Adams attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York from 1887-1891, he also attended a semester at Union College. In 1907 Adams divorced his wife, Elizabeth Ruffner Noyes, after having two daughters. Eight years later Adams married an actress, Jane Peyton. Adams was a close friend of both the investigative reporter Ray Stannard Baker and District Attorney Benjamin Darrow. Adams was a prolific writer, who wrote fiction as well. "Night Bus", one of Adams's many magazine stories, became the basis for the film It Happened One Night. Adams's first solo novel was in 1908, Flying Death, which added to his mystery collection. His best-known novel, Revelry (1926), based on the scandals of the Harding administration, was later followed by Incredible Era (1939), a biography of Harding.
Books
Incredible Era
Samuel Hopkins Adams was one of the original muckrakers. More importantly for today's reader his writing is still engaging and often quite funny. Sometimes picking up a work by other writers of the same era can be a slog. I am looking as you William Allen White. But Adams' writing is lively. In this book, Adams takes a detailed look at the career of President Harding from his time as local newspaper editor until his aborted term as president. Adams makes Harding's hail fellow, well met character come alive. It was this personality that ultimately was Harding's downfall. Adams puts Harding's complete incompetence to hold the highest office in the land on full display. However the author also takes time to point out Harding's kindliness and general bonhomie. The book does address the existence of Nan Britton, Harding's mistress and baby mama. However, Adams finds the facts unimportant and certainly not unique. Much more time is spent on the ugliness of the political campaigns that hounded Harding with allegations of black relatives. Harding faced these allegations throughout his entire career, from local office to White House. Much of the book related to the group of grafters the Harding was surrounded with when he reached the White House. Adams really makes the level of corruption clear. Interestingly, the only person who seems not to have reaped ill gotten pelf from the Harding administration is Harding himself. He is never linked ot the amazing array to graft. In the end Harding lucks out by passing away before the full scope of the corruption was revealed. Adams book gives a full view of Harding and his cronies. While Harding might have been an awful judge of character and mediocre president, Adams makes you feel real sympathy for a man who had no business reaching beyond Marion, Ohio.
Common Cause
"Common Cause provides a nuanced fictional look at the home-front atmosphere in the midwestern United States before and during the Great War, exploring themes of patriotism, jingoism, and exclusion, with an introduction and explanatory notes to provide context"--
Sunrise to sunset
Story about rigorous life in and around the cotton-mills of Troy, New York in 1830.
Grandfather stories
A series of short stories Samuel Hopkins Adams collected from his grandfather in Upstate New York.
2 Detectives
Collected stories of two detectives: Addington Peace is a police inspector with a keen intellect and a dry sense of humor. Luther Trant uses psychological and scientific means to solve mysteries.
The Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail extended from the American settlements in westernmost Missouri to the Mexican town of Santa Fe in present-day New Mexico. Its path followed some of the wildest, most desolate yet beautiful country in America.A spirited and graphic account of life along the Santa Fe Trail, this book includes the history of the land before the famous trail, the lure of Santa Fe, the dangers of surveying and traveling, the cattle drives and the people who trailed west, the Indians, the army, the women, the railroad, and the freighters during its long and colorful life.
The Flying Death
Vacationing at Montauk Point for his health, Dr. Stanley Colton finds himself thrown into the midst of a mystery — men and animals are meeting violent death on the beach with no clues beyond flying shadows and mysterious sounds from the sky. Will the residents of Third House guest house discover the culprit before they have all met their fate?
Banner by the wayside
"This is a picaresque novel set pre-Civil War on the Erie Canal. Durie Edwards is a female foundling, raised as a boy in a bookshop. She falls in with traveling players, thieves, con men, disreputable women (and men), as she tries to sort out the truth from the pious lies told to her, and eventually finding love. Durie's essential innocence is used to bring out the characters of the people she meets. Life on the canal boats is, as far as I can tell, accurately presented. It's a slice of Americana."--Goodreads
The American Rivals of Sherlock Holmes
Weir, H. C. Cinderella's slipper. Ottolengui, R. the nameless man. Ottolengui, R. The Montezuma emerald. Flynt, J. and Walton, F. Found guilty. Futrelle, J. The scarlet thread. MacHarg, W. and Balmer, E. The man higher up. MacHarg, W. and Balmer, E. The Axton letters. Adams, S. H. The man who spoke Latin. Lynde, F. The cloud-bursters. Pidgin, C. F. and Taylor, J. M. The affair of Lamson's cook. Reeve, A. B. The campaign grafter. Anderson, F. I. The infallible Godahl. Davis, R. H. The frame-up.