Thomas R. Adams

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Thomas R. Adams
Alma materUniversity of Michigan

Thomas Randolph Adams (May 22, 1921 – December 1, 2008) was librarian of the John Carter Brown Library and John Hay Professor of Bibliography and University Bibliographer at Brown University.

Early life, education, and family

The son of

U. S. Navy during World War II, and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1944. He received an MA from the University of Pennsylvania
in 1949. In 1951, he married Virginia Matzke Adams, with whom he had three daughters: Virginia Hedges Adams, Josephine Lippincott Adams, and Eliza Stokes Adams.

Career as a rare book librarian

Adams began his career in rare books in 1947 at the Library Company of Philadelphia. He served as curator of rare books in the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library at the University of Pennsylvania from 1950 to 1955. In 1955, he was appointed Custodian of the Chapin Library at Williams College, remaining there until 1957, when he was appointed Librarian of The John Carter Brown Library. He retired from that position in 1983, and stayed on as University Professor at Brown until 1991.[1]

Adams served on the boards and advisory committees of many institutions including the

Mystic Seaport Museum
.

He served on the Council of the

Club of Odd Volumes, Grolier Club
, as well as the Century and Barnstable Yacht Clubs.

He was the 2008 recipient of the John Carter Brown Library Medal, in recognition of distinguished service to the Library. He died in Providence, Rhode Island on December 1, 2008.[1]

Published works

  • American Independence: The Growth of an Idea (1965)
  • The American Controversy: A Bibliographical Study of the British Pamphlets about the American Disputes, 1764-1783 (1980)
  • English Maritime Books Before 1801, with D. W. Waters (1995).
  • Defining Americana: The Evolution of The John Carter Brown Library (2008).

References

  1. ^ a b "Thomas Adam Obituary". Providence Journal. Retrieved August 3, 2022.