The Adams Family

1930. From the Preface: The family whose story is told in this volume (and with which I am in no way connected) is the most distinguished in the United States. Suddenly passing from village obscurity into international fame in the latter part of the eighteenth century, it has ever since maintained a preeminent position, due neither to great wealth nor to a hereditary title, but to character and sheer intellectual ability. It is this in part, which gives it a unique interest, although the life of each of its members here chronicled has an interest also of its own. The volume, however, is not intended to be merely a series of biographies. It is essentially a biography of a family, thrown against the changing background of its times for a hundred and fifty years. Indeed, the family is in part used as a sort of measuring rod to measure the extent of the change in its environment. The chief purpose of the book is thus not at all genealogical, and only in a minor degree individually biographical. Contents: The First Generation: John Adams; The Second Generation: John Quincy Adams; The Third Generation: Charles Francis Adams; and The Fourth Generation: John Quincy, Charles Francis, Henry, and Brooks Adams.