Black and white photograph of historian and man of letters Henry Adams.

Henry Adams

(1838 - 1918)

A descendant of the second and sixth U.S. presidents, Henry Adams was a journalist, novelist, biographer, and historian. Norman Mailer borrowed the third-person-style voice of Adams’ autobiography—published the year Adams died—to talk about himself in The Armies of the Night.

All Writing

What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to learn.

—Henry Adams, 1907

A friend in power is a friend lost.

—Henry Adams, 1905

Voices In Time

1850 | Washington, DC

Body Politic

Henry Adams surveys life on the Hill.More

Issues Contributed