The letters are from his friends, colleagues and students, and address various aspects of teaching, research and university extension. A list of correspondents follows the container list.

This series contains lectures and speeches Adams presented to his classes, to a teachers' conference, public gatherings, and the History and Political Science Association. The lectures are arranged alphabetically, and a complete list appears in the container list. The classroom lectures form the bulk of the series, and cover many of the courses Adams taught. Their titles are drawn from the listings in the Johns Hopkins University Circulars, and range from American colonial to church to Greek and Roman to Oriental history. Adams often preferred to approach history topically, rather than geographically, as indicated by his lectures on the beginnings of church and state, family history, international law and diplomacy, and modern absolutism and revolution. Quiz questions, essay topics and syllabi are included where available.

In 1898, at the request of Baltimore school teachers, Hopkins appointed Adams to a three man committee to arrange a special lecture course for teachers. The committee planned a program of courses in the arts, sciences and education to be given Friday evening and Saturday mornings. Adams contributed a series of 10 lectures on the history of education: Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, classical, medieval, education in France, England and Germany, and University Extension in England. The lectures Adams delivered to the Teachers'Course of Lectures (1898-1899) indicate his interest and expertise in the history of education. In addition to the lectures from the teachers course, this part of the series contains class lists, syllabi, and some financial records.

Adams believed in making knowledge available to a wide range of people. He lectured before audiences at the summer Chautauqua and the Peabody Institute. His public lectures reflect his wide range of knowledge--local life and home institutions, renaissance of geography and the discovery of America, and pioneers of popular education.

Adams conducted an applied social science seminar which focused on one specific topic. This series contains minutes from the 11 lectures of the fall 1888 course which discussed charities and philanthropic works, their history and their function in present day society. To better understand charities, the students visited St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum, the House of Refuge, Friendly Inn, and the Home for the Incurables.

In 1896-1897, students met and discussed various aspects of education--pedagogical methods, how children learn, and the history of education. Adams lectured on educational history from the Jews, to the Greeks and Romans, and Christian education. He also addressed the three great revivals of learning--Charles the Great, Scholasticism and the Renaissance. This series contains minutes from the conference which briefly describe Adams's lectures and subsequent discussion. The only lectures which survived are those on education in classical Greece.

This series contains manuscript and typescript drafts of published and unpublished works as well as reprints of articles, arranged alphabetically. Adams's best known monographs were on the origin of New England towns and their institutions. He intended to expand this into one comprehensive volume which would cover New England from its earliest settlement through the expansion of its towns and the development of its institutions. A manuscript outline, table of contents and some chapters of this work are in the series.

Other writings of note are a partial typescript draft of The Life of Jared Sparks, a chapter entitled "A General View of Europe in the Nineteenth Century" from an unnamed, unfinished work, and an outline of proposed writings. In 1897 Adams drafted a study on types of University Extension programs with chapters on various institutes such as those run by churches, the YMCA and social settlements. This was probably done for the U.S. Bureau of Education study. See Series 6. A complete list of the writings is in the container list.

Adams collected articles and pamphlets on many of his lecture and writing topics. He also made holographic copies of primary material for his work on New England towns. This series contains both secondary material and notes on primary material that he used in his work. The items are arranged alphabetically by topic.

In 1885, Thomas G. Cary, historian of early California history, sent holographic copies of his works Alta California after the Mexican War, The First Vigilance Committee, Chinese in California, and The Vigilance Committee of 1856 to Adams for the use of Josiah Royce, a former Hopkins fellow. Royce eventually published two works on California. Cary's manuscripts are contained in this series.

Material in this series, along with Adams's lectures, paint a fairly complete picture of his activities at Hopkins. It includes administrative records, papers turned in by Adams's students, and a typescript copy of the Historical Seminary minutes. The originals of the minutes are in the University Archives. A microfilm copy is available in the Audio/Visual Department, film #2735, 2736. The Seminary minutes have been edited by Marvin Gettleman and published.

Adams played a number of roles at Hopkins. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he conducted the Seminary of Historical and Political Science. The Seminary consisted of a group of full-time graduate students in history and political science. Original papers on historical and political subjects, and methods and products of research were presented and discussed in this forum. Some of the papers were later published in the Studies in Historical and Political Science.

In November 1881, the noted English historian, Edward A. Freeman, visited Baltimore, and lectured to graduate students at Hopkins. Manuscript copies of his remarks on American institutional history and French and English towns are in this series.

Adams edited the Studies from their institution in 1882 until his death in 1901. Manuscripts submitted for publication are contained in this series. The manuscripts by Charles Levermore and George Brown did appear in the series. The anonymous history of Baltimore was not published. It is assumed that they came to Adams because of his editorial skills.

Adams collected articles by his former students. These, too, were made available to the Seminary. A complete list of authors and may be found in the container list.

The Seminary Library housed a newspaper bureau instituted by Adams. Articles on economic, political, social, legal, historical and educational subjects were cut out and pasted on sheets of brown paper. The articles were indexed, arranged alphabetically, and placed in open pamphlet boxes to be browsed at will. These clippings are part of this series.

As de facto chairman of the history department, Adams performed various administrative tasks. He set guidelines for graduate and undergraduate degrees, organized lectures, kept a list of Ph.D. dissertation topics, and oversaw the Historical and Political Science Association. Items in this series document these tasks

In 1887, Adams began editing for the United States Bureau of Education a series of contributions to American educational history, as well as researching University Extension in Great Britain and America. Adams collected syllabi and catalogs from both domestic and foreign University Extension programs. These pamphlets form the bulk of this series, and a complete list may be found in container list. The pamphlets are divided into domestic and foreign institutions, and are in rough alphabetical order. Drafts of Adams's writings on University Extension are in Series 3.

In early winter of 1896, the Committee of Seven was formed by the American Historical Association to consider the subject of history in the secondary schools and to draw up a scheme of college entrance requirements. The committee members were Andrew C. McLaughlin, Chairman, Herbert Baxter Adams, George L. Fox, Albert Bushnell Hart, Charles H. Haskins, Lucy M. Salmon and H. Morse Stephens. This series contains draft manuscripts of their final report.

This series consists of notebooks from Adams's studies in Heidelberg (1874-1876), estate records (1901-1907), financial records (1897-1902), genealogical material, reminiscences, reports from the "Eight O'Clock Reading Club" (1878-1879), newspaper clippings (1873-1901), obituaries and tributes, and four scrapbooks (1851-1894). Two of the tributes, citations from the American Historical Association, are located in the oversize cabinet in the manuscript workroom.

The "Eight O'Clock Reading Club" consisted of a group of men and women who met to exchange ideas on literature. Although the reports are not detailed, they do document a literary society during the height of the movement.

Two of the scrapbooks (Box 62 and Boxes 63-65) contain memorabilia from Adams's time at Exeter, Amherst, Williston Seminary, Smith, and the University of Heidelberg. The memorabilia includes report cards, greeting cards, sketches, carte-de-visites of friends and copies of the Amherst student paper. The third scrapbook contains newspaper clippings, c. 1869-1897, and the last is material from the Adjutant General's Office of the Confederate States of America (1862-1864). The CSA material consists of letters of discharge, autographs, and reports from the front, and was sent to Adams by Nicholas Butler, the University librarian, for inclusion in the History Department's Southern History collection.

(Information on Adams's use of photographs has been generously provided by Dr. Raymond Cunningham, Professor of History, Fordham University.)

Adams illustrated his lectures with appropriate photographs, prints and maps. These materials were also used in the Seminary setting. The maps aided in the study of historical and political geography; Adams believed strongly in thoroughly acquainting the students with the geography of an area before embarking on a study of its history.

The majority of the photos are carte-de-visites and cabinet photographs of friends, family and colleagues, and souvenier sets of famous works of arts and buildings. Adams's friends, colleagues and students at Smith gave him their photographs; these, along with a few of his nieces and nephews form the personal photographs. There are also two albums: one of prints that may have been taken by Adams, rather than collected or purchased; the other of commercially produced views of Heidelberg.

During the late nineteenth century, people avidly collected carte-de-visites, and later, cabinet photographs of famous people and places. Adams purchased photographs of the West, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska during his travels in that area. He also bought photographs of the Indian Training School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a Trappist monastery in Canada, sights of Heidelberg, Paris, Zurich and other European cities, buildings of other American universities, and well-known works of art.

In addition to the carte-de-visites and cabinet photographs, Adams collected stereocards of European and American sights.

(Source: Johns Hopkins University Circular)