Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958)

Samuel Hopkins Adams was born on January 26, 1871 in Dunkirk, N.Y. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1891. He was a reporter for the New York Sun and McClure's Magazine where his articles focused on the the conditions of public health in the United States. He also wrote a series of eleven articles in Collier's Weekly exposing patent medicines and accusing their producers of making false claims and in some cases, damaging the health of their users. These articles were a huge influence on the passage of the first Pure Food and Drugs Act. He not only wrote for magazines, he also wrote fiction and nonfiction. His most popular novel, Revelry was based on the scandals of the Harding administration. His other titles include The Harvey Girls, The Grandfather Stories, and Tenderloin. Adams died Nov. 15, 1958 in Beaufort, South Carolina. (Bowker Author Biography) Samuel Hopkins Adams was born 26 January 1871 in Dunkirk, New York. Adams graduated from Hamilton College in 1891 and was with the New York Sun until 1900. From 1901 to 1905 he was associated in various editorial and advertising capacities with McClure's syndicate and McClure's Magazine, and it was there the he earned a reputation as a muckracker for his articles on the conditions of public health in the United States. Adams also wrote a series of eleven articles for Collier's Weekly, entitled The Great American Fraud in which he exposed patent medicines; these pieces were credited with influencing the passage of the first Pure Food and Drugs Act in 1906. In 1911 the Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition of falsifications referred only to the ingredients of the medicine, meaning that companies could still make false claims about their products. Adams rebuttled this in articles in Collier's Weekly such as Fraud Medicines Own Up (20th January), Tricks of the Trade (17th February, 1912), The Law, the Label, and the Liars (13th April, 1912) and Fraud Above the Law (11th May, 1912), He exposed the misleading advertising that companies were using to sell their products. Adams was an American journalist and author of more than 50 books of fiction, biography, and exposé. He was also known as Warner Fabian, and as a prolific writer, produced both fiction and nonfiction. His best-known novel, Revelry (1926), based on the scandals of the Harding administration, was later followed by Incredible Era (1939), a biography of Harding and his times. Among his other works are The Great American Fraud (1906), The Harvey Girls (1942), Grandfather Stories (1955), and Tenderloin (1959). Samuel Hopkins Adams died 15 November 1958 in Beaufort, South Carolina. (Bowker Author Biography)

— biography from The Pony Express

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