Frederick Baldwin Adams Jr.


Frederick Baldwin Adams Jr. was an American bibliophile and the director of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City from 1948 to 1969.

Early life

Adams was born in Greenwich, Connecticut on March 28, 1910 and grew up in the family home at 8 East 69th Street in Manhattan and at their country home on Campobello Island in New Brunswick. He was the son of Ellen Walters Adams and Frederick Baldwin Adams. Among his relatives were his sibling Laura Delano Adams, and daughters Gillian Adams, and Ann Baldwin Adams. Among his large extended family was great-uncle were Henry Walters, the founder of the Walters Art Museum.
Adams attended St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire before graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Yale College in 1932, where he was a member of Skull and Bones. After Yale, he attended Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, England.

Career

After Cambridge, he worked at the Air Reduction Company, a manufacturer of oxygen, acetylene, and other gasses and oxy-acetylene cutting and welding equipment, founded by his father and uncle, among others. At the company, he researched how New Deal legislation might affect the company.
From 1948 until 1969, he was director of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City, succeeding Morgan's longtime librarian Belle da Costa Greene. He served as president from 1959 to 1971, Governing Board 1952–, Yale University Press; Member, Yale Corporation, 1964–71; Yale University Council, 1949–58 and President of the New-York Historical Society. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1954. He was president of the Grolier Club from 1947 to 1951.
After his third marriage in 1969, Adams resigned from the Morgan Library and moved to Paris with his wife after their marriage. There he served at president of the Association Internationale de Bibliophile, the most prestigious organization of bibliophiles in the world.
His own collection, which included the largest holdings of works by Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost and an extensive collection of writing by Karl Marx, was dispersed at Sotheby's in London in November 2001.

Personal life

On June 10, 1933, Adams was married to Ruth Potter at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Buffalo, New York. Ruth, a writer and editor, was the daughter of Roderick Potter and Eleanor Potter, and the attendees at the wedding included Sara Delano Roosevelt, the president's mother. Before their divorce on August 5, 1940, they were the parents of:
After their divorce, Ruth immediately remarried to Francis W. LaFarge in Reno, Nevada. Francis was the son of architect Christopher Grant LaFarge and the brother of writer Oliver La Farge and poet Christopher La Farge. They divorced in 1945 and she married Charles Halliwell Duell of Riverside, Connecticut, a founder of the publishing company Duell, Sloan and Pearce who was himself divorced in 1945.
In 1941, Adams remarried to Betty Abbott, the daughter of Hunt Abbott of Wellesley, Massachusetts. Together, they were the parents of two more daughters:
He married his third wife, the Swedish princess Marie-Luise, Princess von Croÿ, on July 23, 1969. Marie-Luise was the daughter of Karl von Croÿ, 13th Duke of Croÿ, and the former Nancy Louise Leishman. Her father was a nephew of Princess Isabella of Croÿ, wife of Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen and Marie-Louise was married in 1941 from Richard E. Metz, and widowed from Horatio Nelson Slater III.
He died on January 8, 2001 at his home in Chisseaux, Indre-et-Loire in France.

Honors

Adams was awarded honorary degrees from his alma mater Yale, Williams College, Union College, Hofstra University, and New York University.

Works