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Talk:Henry Adams (mechanical engineer)

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Early development

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Moderators please be patient, I am working from small microfilm sources that are all that have been preserved and are not indexed well Mr. Adams was one of the founders of ASVE and a nationally significant pioneer in building engineering


(this is from a national organization (the organization) of Mechanical Engineers... Mr. Adams' history is well documented because there is a scholarship for mechanical engineering students that has been endowed in his name - the Henry Adams scholarship or fellowship - I am in no way affiliated with them and am not a recipient of the prize)

(this is from the history page of the 110 year old firm that was begun by Mr. Adams - of which I am in no way affiliated)

  • O. E. Adams, Sr., Dies At 78; Architect's Services Today, article from The Sun, Baltimore, Wednesday Morning, January 31, 1968.

(this is from the obituary of Mr. Henry Adams son - which was published in the Baltimore Sun Newspaper - of which I am in no way affiliated and provides information on the spouse, family of the subject and 2 of his children who carried on his firm; provided link with his architect son with which he consulted on projects who attracted media attention giving leads to his work on significant projects like the Baltimore Courthouse rehabilitation.)--Teda13 (talk) 06:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • American Society of Mechanical Engineers. 1980. Mechanical Engineers in America Born Prior to 1861: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
  • Calvert, Monte A. 1967. The Mechanical Engineer in America, 1830-1910: Professional Cultures in Conflict. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
  • Ferguson, Eugene S. 1992. Engineering and the Mind's Eye. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Sinclair, Bruce. 1980. A Centennial History of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1880-1980. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  • Special to The New York Times. (1929, December 10). HENRY ADAMS DIES :Engineer Was President of Board of Maryland Institute. . New York Times (1857-Current file),30. Retrieved May 2, 2008, from ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2004) database. (Document ID: 94219896).--Teda13 (talk) 23:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Making it work on the inside; Engineering: For 100 years, Henry Adams Inc. has made some of the finest structures in the mid-Atlantic region function properly.; Shanon D. Murray. The Sun. Baltimore, Md.: Apr 26, 1998. pg. 1.F ProQuest document ID: 29147560 --Teda13 (talk) 20:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Transactions of the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers By American Society of Heating and Ventilating, Published 1905, The Society Air conditioning Periodicals, v.10 (1904)--Teda13 (talk) 06:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Transactions of the American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers, Vol. V., Fifth Annual Meeting New York January 24-26, 1899; published 1900 by Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers--Teda13 (talk) 06:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copying from deletion discussion:

So, to summarize the current references: A biographical dictionary... does not establish WP:NOTE, I would like to know to what extent the Calvert, Ferguson, and Sinclair sources actually talk about him. The history of ASHRAE document just confirms that he served as an officer... for what it's worth, in the blurry charter image, he is listed first of 75 "charter membes" in 1895 (but it helps that the list is alphabetical), with address given as Washington, DC, at least consistent with the current bio. Sourcing too much info from henryadams.com is obviously not recommended. The obituary for his son doesn't seem relevant.

So the big question is how much do those three (Calvert, Ferguson, and Sinclair) sources say about him? --Marcinjeske (talk) 17:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Well User:Dhartung was able to find the crucial sources on Google Books... here are the results of my attempts to find those references (on Adams, and his employers Bartlett and Hayward):

Although it is certainly possible that Google may have made mistakes in the OCR or that Google is somehow biased against this person... that situation is unlikely... in light of there being no evidence that these three works even mention Henry Adams, I will remove them from the article. If you wish to readd them, please specify page numbers and a synopsis of the relevant passage to enable others to verify.

Now, the biographical dictionary is not available online, but I again suggest that because it is published by an organization for which he served as an officer, it is not an independent spurce.

History of ASHRAE PDF only notes that he was one of 75 charter members and has no other mention of him. ...that you found please refrain from shouting.--Teda13 (talk) 08:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The obituary is for his son... not to mention since when are obituaries signs of notability? And to definitely not notability of parents. That cite does not even belong on this page... it is relevant to the son's page.

Will make corrections to article as above. --Marcinjeske (talk) 06:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Let it not be said that I am all doom and gloom... this US Congressional Investigation corroborates that Henry Adams was a heating and ventilating engineer in the Supervising Architects Office and "Having designed and laid out the work for the heating and fire extinguishing apparatus pumping plant electric light plant etc for the Ellis Island Immigration Station" (Immigration Investigation By United States Congress. House. Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, Herman Stump, Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, United States, Congress, House) It seems there was some controversy as to the cost and quality of the work.

...the hotlink seems to take you to the beginning of the testimony on page 570 / be sure to scroll down to 574 where Adams' discussion of the systems he designed for Ellis Island begin.--Teda13 (talk) 05:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The 1890 Annual Report of the Attorney General of the United States again seems to mention him, but Google has the work protected, so I can't see the context. (I have emailed Google Books asking them to unprotect it given that it is a 100-year old document produced by the Feds.

He also evaluated the ventilation in the House of Representatives.

Please note this is not the same Author: Adams, Henry, 1846-1935 who wrote "Handbook for mechanical engineers" (1897) while serving as a professor at the City of London College http://books.google.com/books?id=aZtEAAAAIAAJ --Marcinjeske (talk) 07:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Here is more on the founding of ASHVE: "("The first regular meeting, which was purely a business meeting, was called to order at 3:00 p.m. on September 10, 1894 at the Broadway Central Hotel, New York, New York; seventy-five persons accepted the invitation and became charter members. Mr. Smith chaired the meeting, and Mr. Hart was secretary.") In the entire "history of ashrae" pdf, Mr. Adams is mentioned twice... once a charter member, then as a president. Mr Jellett and Mr Bates are repeatedly discussed. Clearly, Mr. Adams was not that crucial to the organization, at least according to this document.--Marcinjeske (talk) 07:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Congressional Investigation

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Even if he is not notable, this could turn out to be an interesting article to write given all the congressional testimony: "Henry Adams testified as was to be expected in laudation of the heating and electric plant he put in. No one had questioned its being a good job but its great cost and surplus of heat and light were alluded to as extravagant and useless. "|Immigration Investigation By United States Congress. House. Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, Herman Stump, Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, United States, Congress, House --Marcinjeske (talk) 08:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ellis Island Design

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Interesting catch, this bit about the Ellis Island engineering - and despite it's prominance as a national landmark, difficult work to credit.--Teda13 (talk) 01:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given the severe penalties for lying to Congress, I would call congressional testimony a reliable source. I still would like to see some newspaper coverage of him besides an obituary[1], but the article is looking much better.--Marcinjeske (talk) 06:42, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Making it work on the inside; Engineering: For 100 years, Henry Adams Inc. has made some of the finest structures in the mid-Atlantic region function properly.; Shanon D. Murray. The Sun. Baltimore, Md.: Apr 26, 1998. pg. 1.F ProQuest document ID: 29147560

--Teda13 (talk) 08:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maryland Institute

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  • His obituary states "association ... Maryland Institute began.. forty-five years (before death) ... went to the school as a teacher,... for twelve years. In 1902 ... vice president ... elected president in 1920."
  • The school needed to be rebuilt after the Baltimore Fire; working on specifics and connection to him with that effort. We lost a lot, and a lot of information was lost with the advent of the fire since at that time most things were downtown.--Teda13 (talk) 08:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WWI Service

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  • His obituary states "During the World War Mr. Adams was the engineer for the Federal Fuel Administration for Maryland and Delaware." and I think public service, in that kind of supervising / advisory capacity, during a critical period such as during world war would be something notable; and it's something I wasn't aware of.--Teda13 (talk) 08:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I have rephrased the sentence to avoid quoting.. useful know what the Federal Fuel Administration was, I have left it as a red link as that topic seems significant for a future article. Also, when it comes to style, articles should almost always be in an "encyclopedic" voice... for instance, no need to use titles like Mr. unless they are relevant to the specific information you are discussing (for instance, if you could reliably say "He had all his employees call him 'Mr. Adams'." --Marcinjeske (talk) 01:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Just to clarify, I was not suggesting we needed information about it for the Henry Adams article, just that it would be a useful topic to cover in the encyclopedia. (Worth of a new page creation.) Unfortunately the archive site is down for the weekend, but I found a few other references, so I plan to create a stub page for it. One other thing to note: unlike an article page, where text is edited into a coherent whole, an articles talk page is usually treated in threaded mode. That is, you would not edit people previous comments but rather add your comments after theirs. Each comment is signed by the editor to make it easier to follow a discussion. Excepyions are when there are obvious unintended errors (that cause problems when reading the page) or if an editor decides to fix their own minor mistakes, like my misspelling at the commencement of this sentence. --Marcinjeske (talk) 01:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Stubs: so next time the editors see something I've originated that's not up to snuff - - do me the favor of just reclassifying it as a stub, rather than blowing it away with a speedy-delete--Teda13 (talk) 04:50, 4 May 2008 (UTC)--Teda13 (talk) 06:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I am not sure if you are replying to me or addressing generally... if you are referring to this:
09:51, 17 April 2008 (hist) (diff) Henry Adams (mechanical engineer)‎ (previous redirect attempt to external site was blanked by creator)
At the time, the page had been completely erased by you... usually, the original author of a page deleting all the content indicates a desire by the author to delete the article. If there is nothing, not even a sentence, there is no article. You have to realize that an article without any information (completely blank) can provide no clue as to what is intended and is treated like all the similar Special:NewPages. To be even a stub, an article needs to have some basic information to identify the subject. And being a stub does not excuse something from meeting the inclusion criteria of WP:Notability. Otherwise we could just feed old phone books in and mark everything as a stub. Anyway, I am glad that the article is now in good shape - trust when I say I am far from the most stringent editor on here. --Marcinjeske (talk) 05:09, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Engineering Abroad

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  • Exciting to see his obituary gives credit to his work (supported by old Henry Adams LLC project list) in China and Manila on a Medical College and a Masonic Temple - shows his significance on the world scene. I think it would be much more difficult 80 years ago to oversee a project that is on the other side of the world and therefore indicates the prominence of his work. Possibly he went himself or had a team stationed there, with which he would have had to correspond, give direction to, and supply / all without an internet. The time period, and the types of coverage that newspapers of that time gave would have been more continental. Expect sources for support of this would more likely be physical rather than published: drawings in an archive, journals, travel shipping records, --Teda13 (talk) 08:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]


One note, since wikipedia tries to avoid WP:Original Research, many of the type of documents you list would be suggested against. Unless there is a really good reason, stick to WP:Reliable Sources like published books and media coverage.--Marcinjeske (talk) 13:05, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Right - No orig resrh - though artifacts and un-published oral accounts certainly allow wider collaboration and make for a better process - - seeking rather than stumbling upon the available published materials.--Teda13 (talk) 18:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Henry Adams Scholarships

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Didn't actually claim, the American Institute of Architects, Henry Adams Medal and Certificate program were named for him. They are named and endowed by the work of the author Henry Adams. I can see how it may have looked like I mis-typed. http://www.aia.org/SiteObjects/files/Henry_Adams_Award.pdf Teda13 (talk) 03:27, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Commons files used on this page have been nominated for deletion

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The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page have been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:51, 13 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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