National Park ServiceU.S. Department of the Interior

Release Date: Tuesday, July 12, 2012; For Immediate Release

Adams National Historical Park

135 Adams StreetQuincy, MA 02169-1749

617-770-1175 phone617-773-3810 fax

Adams National Historical Park News Release

Art-in-the-Park: Through the Lens of Clover AdamsLectures, Book Signing, Tours, & Exhibits

A Symposium Celebrating the Life and Times of Marian “Clover” Adams and Henry AdamsFriday, Saturday, Sunday

July 27, 28, 29, 2012Adams National Historical Park

“Peace field”135 Adams Street, Quincy

E X P E R I E N C E Y O U R A M E R I C AThe National Park Service cares for special places saved by the American people so that all may experience our heritage.

Lectures & Book Signings

On July 27, 28, and 29, 2012, Adams National Historical Park will promote “Art-in-the-Park” to celebrate the life

and times of Clover Adams with a weekend of talks, tours, and exhibits featuring noted scholars, authors, and

historians of Marion “Clover” Hooper Adams, Henry Adams, and the Adams Family. All programs will take place

at Adams National Historical Park, 135 Adams Street, Quincy MA.

On Friday Evening, July 27, 2012, at 6:30 PM in the Carriage House

Natalie Dykstra: “Who was Clover Adams”

Peter Drummey: “Meet the Adams In-Laws”

Anne Bentley: “Artistry in Light and Shadow”

Marian “Clover” Adams, wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian, Henry Adams, was an accomplished

photographer and chronicler of the people and places of the “Gilded Age.” Clover produced more than 150

evocative photographs that capture the spirit of the age and illuminate the life and times of this remarkable and

enigmatic woman. These compelling and often poignant images of a vanished world are preserved at the

Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.

A Boston “bluestocking,” Clover Adams married into one of America’s first families and presided over a celebrated

salon at the home she shared with her husband Henry Adams in Washington, D.C. Clover Adams was an

accomplished photographer and chronicler of the people and places of the “Gilded Age.” In 1883, Clover began

taking and developing photographs; by 1885, she had produced more than 150 evocative images that capture the

spirit of the age and illuminate the life and times of this remarkable and enigmatic woman. She had, a friend noted,

“all she wanted, all this world could give.” Although she delighted in her craft, her photographs, while often

charming and playful, were sometimes bleak and somber. In December 1885, following an autumn of loss and

uncertainty, Clover drank from a vial of potassium cyanide, a chemical she used to develop her photographs; her

delight had become her demise. Clover’s story has long been shrouded in secrecy, yet there are clues to the mystery

of her bright life and shadowy death. The clues are there in the haunting images that invite the viewer to look

beyond the circumstances of her untimely death to the reality of her brilliant life. Clover Adams’ compelling and

often poignant images of a vanished world are preserved at the Massachusetts Historical Society (MHS) in Boston.

Explore the life and times of Clover Adams with Natalie Dykstra, Associate Professor of English, Hope College,

Holland, Michigan and Fellow, Massachusetts Historical Society. Ms. Dykstra, in her compelling biography of

Marion “Clover” Adams, reveals how Clover’s photographs illuminate the outwardly charmed existence of one of

America’s first female photographers, and the inner tensions, turmoil, and tragedy in the haunting images she

captured and preserved.

E X P E R I E N C E Y O U R A M E R I C AThe National Park Service cares for special places saved by the American people so that all may experience our heritage.

Examine Clover Adams’ use of the photographic medium to reflect her emotional connections to the arts

and to her subjects with Anne Bentley, Curator of Art, Massachusetts Historical Society. In “Artistry in

Light and Shadow,” Ms. Bentley explores Clover’s images and shares her perspectives on Clover’s

inimitable style and her photographic legacy in selected images from Clover’s collection of photographs

from the Massachusetts Historical Society,

Consider Clover’s dilemma and “Meet the Adams In-Laws” with Peter Drummey, Massachusetts

Historical Society. Clover Adams and her in-laws, Charles Francis and Abigail Brooks Adams, did not

always see eye-to-eye. In a candid image of her in-laws on the porch at Peace field, Clover captured the

dynamics of this relationship in one of her most famous and unsettling photographs. Mr. Drummey

explores this relationship, and others, in his insightful and compelling look at the Adamses and their

tragic and “charming blue.”

Photographers at Peace fieldOn Saturday, July 28, 2012, from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM at Peace field

Amateur and professional photographers alike will fan out across the property at Peace field to capture, in

black and white, photographs that evoke the historic “sense of place” and the vanished world of Henry

and Clover Adams.

Photograph Exhibit

On Sunday, July 29, 2012, from NOON to 5:00 PM in the Carriage House

Photographs taken at Peace field on Saturday, July 28, may be exhibited in the Adams Carriage House on

Sunday, July 29. Guest curators for this special exhibition include photography students Marisa Carson

and Rebecca Ledin, and Professor Hettie Handenschield, Quincy College.

Tours and Exhibits

On Friday, Saturday, Sunday, July 27, 28, 29, 2012

Join the staff of Adams NHP on a “behind-the-scenes” tour of Henry Adams’ third-floor bedroom, which

will be open to the public on this special occasion, and by reservation throughout the season. Call the

Visitor Center at 617-770-1175 for more information. These “focus tours” will provide visitors with the

opportunity to examine furnishings and other artifacts in the Old House at Peace field that illuminate the

life and times of Henry Adams and Clover Adams.

E X P E R I E N C E Y O U R A M E R I C AThe National Park Service cares for special places saved by the American people so that all may experience our heritage.