Annie Adams Fields
Annie Adams Fields was an influential American writer and literary figure, born Ann West Adams into a prominent Boston family with connections to notable figures such as presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, as well as author Louisa May Alcott. She received a rigorous education at the George B. Emerson School for Young Ladies before marrying James Fields, a widowed publisher and editor, at the age of twenty. Their home became a vibrant hub of literary culture in New England, hosting esteemed writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles Dickens. Fields played an integral role in the literary community, assisting her husband with the Atlantic Monthly and publishing her own poetry, particularly after his death in 1881. She authored several notable works, including collections of poetry and biographies, and was an advocate for women's suffrage and charity, contributing to both Radcliffe College and Boston University. Fields also developed a close mentorship with fellow writer Sarah Orne Jewett, fostering a lasting literary legacy. Her life and work reflect the rich cultural dynamics of 19th-century America, emphasizing the role of women in literature and social reform.
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Annie Adams Fields
Author
- Born: June 6, 1834
- Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
- Died: January 5, 1915
Biography
Annie Adams Fields was born Ann West Adams to the well-known Boston doctor Zabdiel Boylston Adams and his wife Sarah. On her father’s side, Fields was descended from New England settler Henry Adams and related to presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams; on her mother’s side, she was related to Louisa May Alcott. As a young woman, Fields’s family sent her to the exacting George B. Emerson School for Young Ladies, which required a more rigorous curriculum for its young charges than typical for women’s schools of the time.
At twenty, she married widower publisher and editor James Fields, who was some seventeen years her elder. Despite the difference in ages, their marriage was a happy one, and their house in Boston became one of the centers of literary culture in New England. Fields could count among her friends the writers Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and William Dean Howells. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was her next-door neighbor, and she and her husband had Charles Dickens stay as a houseguest for several days during one of his American tours.
In 1861, Fields’s husband became editor of the important Atlantic Monthly magazine. Fields worked as an uncredited assistant editor; furthermore, on a number of occasions her husband published anonymous poems by Fields in Atlantic Monthly. During this time, she also began to keep a regular diary that recorded her memories, encounters, thoughts, and views on the most important literary personages and texts of the century. Her husband drew directly upon her diary in some of his own critical articles.
Despite her love for her husband and the vibrant quality of their marriage, Fields nevertheless seems to have come into her own as a writer after his death. Her first collection of poetry, Under the Olive was published in 1881, to be followed by many texts in a variety of genres over the years. Their house continued to remain a center for the literary scene in Boston; Fields also distinguished herself in her works for charity as a writer and as a citizen. For example, her book How to Help the Poor (1883) helped raise consciousness about charities and volunteer work; she also became a proponent of women’s suffrage and education, serving on the board of Harvard’s “annex” women’s college, Radcliffe, and of the coed Boston University.
As a writer, Fields would particularly distinguish herself as a chronicler of the literary world and as a critic; she would go on eventually to publish such books as Whittier: Notes of His Life and Friendships in 1893, Letters of Celia Thaxter in 1895, Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1897, and Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1899. In later years, Fields would serve as a friend and mentor to writer Sarah Orne Jewett. The two would be constant companions for many years; although Fields was sixteen years older than Jewett, she outlived Jewett, and published a book of her letters in 1911.