author
James Truslow Adams
1878–1949
Best known for popularizing the phrase “American Dream,” this American historian wrote lively, accessible books that helped bring the nation’s past to a wide audience. His work paired big ideas about American life with close attention to colonial New England and the country’s early development.
2 Audiobooks
The founding of New England
by James Truslow Adams
Our business civilization : some aspects of American culture
by James Truslow Adams
About the author
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 18, 1878, James Truslow Adams became a writer and historian after earlier success in business. He built a reputation as a freelance author who made American history readable for general audiences without losing sight of serious scholarship.
He is especially remembered for The Epic of America (1931), the book that helped popularize the phrase “American Dream.” Adams also wrote extensively on New England and early American history, and his The Founding of New England won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1922.
Adams died in Westport, Connecticut, on May 18, 1949. Today he is still read both for his influential idea of the American Dream and for the clear, wide-ranging historical writing that introduced many readers to America’s past.