Adams, Samuel Hopkins (1871-1958), was an American journalist and author. Early in his career, Adams wrote newspaper and magazine articles that exposed dishonesty in business and government. His articles collected in The Great American Fraud (1906) dealt with patent medicine frauds and contributed to the passage of the first federal food and drug act in 1906.
About 1910, Adams began concentrating on fiction, and he produced many novels and short stories for both children and adults. Adams used people and events from American history in much of his fiction. His most appealing historical works describe life along the Erie Canal in New York during the 1800’s. His children’s novel Chingo Smith of the Erie Canal (1958) is an example. Adams based his political novel Revelry (1926) on events during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Adams also wrote several biographies and a number of mystery stories about an amateur detective called Average Jones. Adams’s Grandfather Stories (1955) is a collection of essays. Adams was born on Jan. 26, 1871, in Dunkirk, New York. He died on Nov. 15, 1958.
