Frederick Upham Adams (December 10, 1859 – August 28, 1921) was an American inventor, writer,

editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...

, and political organizer. He was born in

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

, the son of an

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

veteran and mechanical engineer. He died on August 28, 1921, at

Larchmont, New York Larchmont is a Village (New York), village located within the Town (New York), Town of Mamaroneck (town), New York, Mamaroneck in Westchester County, New York. Larchmont is a suburb of New York City, located approximately northeast of Midt ...

. In 1886, he invented the electric light post. Late in 1896 Adams wrote a social reform novel published by Charles H. Kerr & Company of Chicago. He was co-editor of the monthly reform magazine ''The New Time'' in 1897 and 1898. He wrote exclusively for the magazine, which was also published by Kerr, according to the publisher mid-1897.(Advertisement)
Charles H. Kerr & Company. One back page of ''President John Smith: The Story of a Peaceful Revolution (Written in 1920)''. Chicago: Kerr. New edition of ''President John Smith: The Story of a Peaceful'' as Library of Progress, No. 24, August 1897. Digital copy at

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...

retrieved 2016-10-19. Adams was one of the principle organizers of a short-lived political organization called The Majority Rule League of the United States. Part of the platform of this organization was that

majority rule In social choice theory, the majority rule (MR) is a social choice rule which says that, when comparing two options (such as bills or candidates), the option preferred by more than half of the voters (a ''majority'') should win. In political ...

of the people should prevail and that corporate entities and especially

monopolies A monopoly (from Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce a particular thing, a lack of viable sub ...

should be taken out of national politics. On the title page of a January 1898 pamphlet by Adams which outlines the "platform" of The Majority Rule League of the United States ("Drafted After Wide Correspondence"), is a brief statement of purpose, to wit: "A plan for a permanent organization of the people in their respective precincts with a view of substituting direct legislation by majority vote for the existing system of corporation legislation by purchased vote."

Books

* ''President John Smith: The Story of a Peaceful Revolution'' (Chi.: Charles H. Kerr & Co, 1897), ; reprinted as ''President John Smith'' (1971) * ''The Majority Rule League of the United States : Drafted After Wide Correspondence'', Unity Library No. 78, (Charles H. Kerr & Company, Chicago, January 1898) (30 page stapled pamphlet, setting forth Majority Rule League of the United States platform and organizational tenets) * ''The Kidnapped Millionaires: A Tale of Wall Street and the Tropics'' (Bos.: Lothrop Publ Co, 1901) * ''John Burt'' (Phi.: D. Biddle, 1903) * ''John Henry Smith: A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life'', illustrated for Mr. Smith by A. B. Frost (Doubleday, Page & Company, 1905), * ''The Bottom of the Well'' (NY: G. W. Dillingham Co, 1906) * ''The Conquest of the Tropics: The Story of the Creative Enterprises Conducted by the United Fruit Company'' (Doubleday, Romance of Big Business no. 1, 1914)

References

*Johnson, Allen, ed. ''Dictionary of American Biography''. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936.

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Frederick Upham 1859 births 1921 deaths Writers from Boston People from Larchmont, New York