page_title: Henry Adams
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Henry Adams / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Harvard graduation photo of Henry Brooks Adams, author of 'The Education of Henry Adams'
context_page_description: Henry Brooks Adams was an American historian and member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. Presidents.
  As a young Harvard graduate, he was secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, Abraham Lincoln's ambassador to the United Kingdom. The posting influenced the younger man through the experience of wartime diplomacy, and absorption in English culture, especially the works of John Stuart Mill. After the American Civil War, he became a political journalist who entertained America's foremost intellectuals at his homes in Washington and Boston.
  During his lifetime, he was best known for his History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, a nine-volume work, praised for its literary style.
  His posthumously published memoir, The Education of Henry Adams, won the Pulitzer Prize and went on to be named by the Modern Library as the best English-language nonfiction book of the 20th century.
context_section_description: He was born in Boston on February 16, 1838, into one of the country's most prominent families. His parents were Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (1807–1886) and Abigail Brooks (1808–1889). Both his paternal grandfather, John Quincy Adams, and great-grandfather, John Adams, one of the most prominent among the Founding Fathers, had been U.S. Presidents. His maternal grandfather, Peter Chardon Brooks, was a millionaire. Another great-grandfather, Nathaniel Gorham, signed the Constitution.
  After his graduation from Harvard University in 1858, he embarked on a grand tour of Europe, during which he also attended lectures in civil law at the University of Berlin. He was initiated into the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity as honorary member at the 1893 Columbian Exposition by Harris J. Ryan, a judge for the exhibit on electrical engineering. Through that organization, he was a member of the Irving Literary Society.
caption: Harvard graduation photo: 1858
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