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Journalist, author, biographer and historian Samuel Hopkins Adams was born along the banks of Lake Erie at Dunkirk, NY, on 26 January 1871. His parents were Myron, a ministe3r, and Hester Rose Hopkins Adams, the daughter of a theologian. Adams attended Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, and upon graduation began working as a newspaper reporter and later editor.
In the early years of the 20th century Adams became one of the pioneers in "muckraking journalism" with his exposes on the patent-medicine industry published in Collier's Magazine. He would later write a number of informational articles on health and medicine and become an associate member of the American Medical Association, even though he lacked a background in medicine. Adams was probably the first journalist to write articles on health that could be understood by the average reader
Adams' first novel, "The Clarion", was published in 1914 and told the story of an idealistic editor trying to run an honest newspaper amid unscrupulous advertisers and corrupt politicians. A reoccurring theme throughout Adams' novels was the triumph of idealism over corruption. He wrote biographies on writer Alexander Woollcott, American politician Daniel Webster and President Warren G. Harding. Earlier supporters of Harding tried to suppress Adams' novel "Revelry" (1926) for its portrayal of the various scandals that had plagued the Harding administration. Adams wrote a number of "detective Average Jones" mystery stories that would later be adapted to radio. Under the pseudonym Warner Fabian he wrote several novels about the "Lost Generation" in the years following World War I, of which "Flaming Youth" (1923) was probably his best known.
An expert on the history of New York state, Adams wrote a series of articles for "The New Yorker" on the Erie Canal that were gathered together in 1955 and published under the title "Godfather Stories". He also authored "Canal Town" (1944) that told the story of the canal's construction, "Banner by the Wayside" about a 19th-century troupe of traveling New York actors and "Sunrise to Sunset", which chronicled the rise of the union movement in New York's garment district.
Adams married Elizabeth R. Noyes (1877-1957) of Charleston, WV, in 1898. The couple had two daughters before their divorce in 1915. Later that year he married former stage actress Jane Peyton Van Norman (1880-1946).
Adams died on 15 November 1958, while at his winter residence in Beaufort, SC. He was survived by his daughters, Hester and Katherine.
