Hannah Adams
Hannah Adams was an influential American author and early advocate for women's education in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Born to Thomas and Elizabeth Clark Adams as the second of five children, she faced significant challenges, including her mother's death when she was twelve and her father's financial difficulties. Educated at home due to her ill health, Adams became a tutor and later published her first significant work, "An Alphabetical Compendium of the Various Sects," in 1784, which explored various religious beliefs by allowing practitioners to articulate their faith. Her subsequent publications contributed to religious scholarship, including a dictionary detailing religious denominations and contemporary movements, notably including the emerging Unitarians.
Adams achieved notable success as a self-educated writer, and her work garnered support from liberal religious families, especially during a legal dispute with Reverend Jedidiah Morse over publication rights. Despite financial challenges, she maintained her commitment to education and faith, publishing several works, including a testimonial of her Unitarian Christian beliefs. Adams's legacy is preserved in collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Schlesinger Library. She is remembered as a pioneering figure in American religious literature and women's roles in education during her time.
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Subject Terms
Hannah Adams
Writer
- Born: October 2, 1755
- Birthplace: Medfield, Massachusetts
- Died: November 15, 1831
- Place of death: Brookline, Massachusetts
Biography
Hannah Adams was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Clark Adams, the second of five children. Her mother died when she was twelve. Because of her ill health, Adams was educated at home. Her father dissipated a substantial fortune while attempting unsuccessful careers as a farmer and bookseller. When Adams was twelve, he turned to tutoring, offering a home and lessons to Harvard students who were on leave. Adams shared these lessons and eventually herself became a tutor.
In reaction to her reading of Thomas Broughton’s An Historical Dictionary of All Religions (1742), Adams developed her own views of comparative religion. In 1778, she decided to write her own history of religion based upon the principle of allowing each religious sect to explain the collective views of its faith in the words of a believer. In 1784, she published An Alphabetical Compendium of the Various Sects Which Have Appeared from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Present Day. Her family needed her earnings, but even though the first edition sold out, her profits went to the agent. She turned to teaching and kept a country school while she looked for another publisher and lobbied for the first copyright law (1790). In 1791, she published a second edition titled A View of Religions after developing a list of subscribers. Increased demand for her A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations led to her correspondence with European as well as American clergy. In later editions of her dictionary, she supplied an analysis of contemporary religious movements, offering an important description of the emerging Unitarians who based their views on Joseph Priestly.
In 1799, Adams published A Summary History of New England and then a schoolbook version, An Abridgment of the History of New England (1801). The Reverend Jedidiah Morse, who was the author of a similar history, began a legal dispute with Adams over publication rights. Adams was backed by leading liberal religious families, who paid her legal fees, and the more orthodox Morse was finally forced to apologize—though he withheld the damages awarded to Adams until 1814. In 1804, Adams published her own testimonial of faith, The Truth and Excellence of the Christian Religion Exhibited. Adams regarded herself as a Unitarian Christian. Her success as a self- educated writer led the Boston Athenaeum, which denied admission to women, to allow Adams to use their library as an honorary visitor. She seems to have been a pleasant houseguest and is reported to have spent two weeks visiting John Adams, a distant cousin and second president of the United States. Her autobiography appeared posthumously. Her surviving manuscripts have been collected as the Hannah Adams Papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston and at the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College. A contemporary description of her is preserved in the journal of the Reverend John Pierce of Brookline located at the Massachusetts Historical Society.