Henry Carter Adams (December 31, 1851 – August 11, 1921) was a U.S. economist and Professor of Political Economy and finance at the University of Michigan.[1][2]
Early years
Adams was born in Davenport, Iowa on December 31, 1851, son of Ephraim Adams and Elizabeth S.A. Douglass, and grandson of Ephraim Adams, of New Ipswich, New Hampshire.[3] His father was a missionary of the "Iowa Band" from New England. He graduated from Iowa College in 1874,[3] now called Grinnell College, which was co-founded by his father.[4] Adams's middle name Carter acknowledged a benefactor of Grinnell College.[5]
Adams became a lecturer at Cornell, from 1880 to 1883, and associate professor of political science there, from 1883 to 1887, also lecturer on political science at the University of Michigan, from 1880 to 1887, and professor of political economy and finance there from 1887 until his death.[3] He also became a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University from 1880 to 1882. While at Cornell, he delivered an address on "The Labor Problem," which resulted in his dismissal from the Cornell faculty when a critic accused him of "sapping the foundations of our society."[8] In his first year at Michigan he becoming head of the newly created Department of Economics. "For him economics was more than a study of data and statistics; he saw it as the very bone and sinews of our national life...."[9] At Michigan, he also worked with John Dewey.
In 1890, he married Bertha Wright of Port Huron and they had three sons, Henry Carter Adams Jr., later with the International Mercantile Marine at New York City, Dr. Theodore W. Adams, later on the staff of Doctor Reuben Peterson, and Thomas H. Adams, a senior in the University of Michigan.[9]