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'''James Truslow Adams''' (October 18, 1878 – May 18, 1949)<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Brennan |first1=Elizabeth A. |last2=Clarage |first2=Elizabeth C. |year=1999 |title=Who's Who of Pulitzer Prize Winners |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=63nvmt4HqTEC |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=9781573561112 |language=en}}</ref> was an
==Early life==
Adams was born in [[Brooklyn, New York]], to a wealthy family, the son of Elizabeth Harper (née Truslow) and [[stockbroker]] [[William Newton Adams]] Jr.<ref name="auto">{{cite book|title=Who Was Who in American History – the Military|date=1975|publisher=Marquis Who's Who|location=Chicago|isbn=0837932017|page=2}}</ref>
His father had been born in [[Caracas]], [[Venezuela]]. His paternal grandfather, William Newton Adams Sr., was American of [[English Americans|English]] descent with roots in [[Virginia]] and his paternal grandmother, Carmen Michelena de Salias, a Venezuelan of [[Spanish immigration to Venezuela|Spanish descent]]
Adams took his bachelor's degree from the [[New York University Tandon School of Engineering]] (then [[Polytechnic University of New York|Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn]]) in 1898, and a MA degree from [[Yale University]] in 1900. He entered investment banking, rising to partner in a [[New York Stock Exchange]] member firm.<ref name="auto"/> In 1912, he considered his savings ample enough to switch to a career as a writer.
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Adams coined the term "[[American Dream]]" in his 1931 book ''[[The Epic of America]]''.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=paIpt-vBVR8C&q=%2522American+Dream%2522+James+Truslow+Adams|title=The Epic of America|last=Adams|first=James Truslow|date=2012-05-01|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=9781412847018|page=xii|language=en}}</ref><ref name="jstordailydreamingup">{{cite news |last1=Wills |first1=Matthew |title=James Truslow Adams: Dreaming up the American Dream |url=https://daily.jstor.org/james-truslow-adams-dreaming-american-dream/ |access-date=March 29, 2019 |work=JSTOR Daily |date=May 18, 2015}}</ref> His American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yM96DK4ELZkC|title=The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation|last=Cullen|first=Jim|date=2004-01-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195173253|language=en}}</ref>
However, Adams felt the American Dream was in peril during the 1920s and 30s. He complained that "money making and material improvements . . . mere extensions of the material basis of existence", had gained ascendancy, becoming "goods in themselves . . . [mimicking] the aspects of moral virtues." The original American Dream had always been about "quality and spiritual values": "The American dream that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty, although that has doubtless counted heavily. It has been much more than that." He warned that "in our struggle to 'make a living'" we were neglecting "to live". ''The Epic of America'' was his attempt to save a "priceless heritage", and sustain the distinctly American understanding of progress in humane and moral terms. The true American Dream was of "a genuine individual search and striving for the abiding values of life", and for the "common man to rise to full stature" in the free realms of "communal spiritual and intellectual life."<ref>James Truslow Adams, ''The Epic of America'' (1931; repr., New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1941), 405, 406, 412, 415 (italics in original). For a discussion of Adams as the originator of the term American Dream, see James Cullen, ''The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 7, 191. See also Benjamin Hunnicutt, ''[[Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream]]'', (Philadelphia, Temple Press, 2013).</ref>
===Two educations===
A quote from one of Adams' essays "There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live" is widely misattributed to [[John Adams]]. The quote is part of an essay by Adams entitled "To 'Be' or to 'Do': A Note on American Education" which appeared in the June, 1929 issue of ''Forum''. The essay is very critical of American education, both in school and at the university level, and explores the role of American culture and class-consciousness in forming that system of education.
In a more complete version of that quote, Adams says: <blockquote>There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live. Surely these should never be confused in the mind of any man who has the slightest inkling of what culture is. For most of us it is essential that we should make a living ... In the complications of modern life and with our increased accumulation of knowledge, it doubtless helps greatly to compress some years of experience into far fewer years by studying for a particular trade or profession in an institution; but that fact should not blind us to another—namely, that in so doing we are learning a trade or a profession, but are not getting a liberal education as human beings.</blockquote>
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==Bibliography==
* {{cite book|author=James Truslow Adams|title=The Founding of New England|url=https://archive.org/details/foundingnewengl03adamgoog|year=1921|publisher=Atlantic Monthly Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/foundingnewengl03adamgoog/page/n25 3]–}}; [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73933 Gutenberg]. [[Pulitzer Prize for History]]<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/foundingofneweng010190mbp|title=The Founding Of New England|last=James Truslow Adams|date=1949-01-01|publisher=An Atlantic Monthly Press Book}}</ref>
* ''Revolutionary New England'' (1923); {{cite book|author=James Truslow Adams|title=reprint|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lfq7JyF8AwcC|date=1 November 2001|publisher=Simon Publications LLC|isbn=978-1-931541-57-2}}<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/revolutionarynew00adam|title=Revolutionary New England, 1691-1776|last=Adams|first=James Truslow|date=1927-01-01|publisher=Boston : Little, Brown}}</ref>
* ''New England in the Republic, 1776-1850'' (1926)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/newenglandinrepu00adam|title=New England in the republic, 1776-1850|last=Adams|first=James Truslow|date=1926-01-01|publisher=Little, Brown, and Company|language=en}}</ref>
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* ''Justice Without'' (1933)
* ''Henry Adams'' (1933)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.amazon.com/Henry-Adams-James-Truslow/dp/B00085WQUE/|title=Henry Adams|last=Adams|first=James Truslow|date=1933-01-01|publisher=A. & C. Boni, inc|isbn=9781125146606|language=en}}</ref>
* ''America's Tragedy'' (1934)
* ''The Record of America'' (1935)
* ''Building the British Empire: To the End of the First Empire'' (1938)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.amazon.com/Building-British-Empire-End-First/dp/B00087KT74/|title=Building The British Empire: To The End Of The First Empire|last=Adams|first=James Truslow|date=1938-01-01|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|isbn=9781125808375|edition=First|language=en}}</ref>
*{{cite book|title=James Truslow Adams: Select Correspondence|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AY23HmjSBmIC|date=1 June 2012|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-1-4128-4697-4}}
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* {{FadedPage|id=Adams, James Truslow|name=James Truslow Adams|author=yes}}
* {{Find a Grave}}
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[[Category:American male biographers]]
[[Category:American male essayists]]
[[Category:American people of Basque descent]]▼
[[Category:American people of Venezuelan descent]]▼
[[Category:Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery]]▼
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature]]
[[Category:Historians from New York (state)]]▼
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:Writers from Brooklyn]]▼
[[Category:People from Southport, Connecticut]]
[[Category:Polytechnic Institute of New York University alumni]]
[[Category:Pulitzer Prize for History winners]]
▲[[Category:Writers from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:Writers from Connecticut]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]
▲[[Category:Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery]]
▲[[Category:American people of Basque descent]]
▲[[Category:American people of Venezuelan descent]]
▲[[Category:Historians from New York (state)]]
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