Herbert Baxter Adams served as executive secretary of the American Historical Association from 1884–1900. He was also professor and chair of the history department at Johns Hopkins University. He earned his PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1876. Adams passed away July 30, 1901.
In Memoriam
From the American Historical Review 7:1 (October 1901)
Professor Herbert Baxter Adams, for nearly a quarter of a century at the head of the Department of History at Johns Hopkins University, died at Amherst, Massachusetts, on July 30. He was born in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, in 1850, graduated at Amherst in 1872, and then took the degree of Ph.D. at Heidelberg. Returning to the United States he began at once his long connection with Johns Hopkins University which was terminated only when ill health forced his resignation last year. Professor Adams was a voluminous writer, though his work was mainly monographic, his one long book being the Life and Writings of Jared Sparks, published in 1893; but his influence and his interests lay more in organizing and inspiring than in historical production of the ordinary kind. His activity in his own sphere was such as to make him one of the moving forces in American university life. At Johns Hopkins he created a school of vigorous historical study whose graduates are to be found in all parts of the United States, but this was by no means the limit of his influence. By his monographs in the years 1881–1885 on the Germanic Origin of New England Towns and related subjects he kindled an interest in the study of local institutions. He wrote and talked frequently on methods of historical study, the teaching of history, on public education, on university extension. He edited the long and successful series of Johns Hopkins University Studies, and, for the United States Bureau of Education, the series of volumes entitled Contributions to American Educational History.
Finally to him perhaps more than to any other one man is due the foundation and successful career of the American Historical Association, which he served as secretary until less than a year ago when his health forced him to relinquish the burden. The death of such a man means the passing of one of the most successful organizers and inspirers of American historical activities.