Get To Know: Marian Hooper Adams
According to the Massachusetts Historical Society, Marian Hooper Adams was born in1843. Her mother, Ellen Sturgis, died when Marian was five years old. Her father, Robert W. Hooper, reared “Clover”, as she was known in the family, and her two brothers. She married in 1872, and took up photography about ten years later, keeping detailed noted on her Daguerrotypes. She later used glass plates.
Apparently she was admired locally, but her husband was not happy with the idea of publishing her work.
Her father died in 1885, which threw Clover into a depression that resulted later that same year in suicide by drinking photographic chemicals. Her husband, Henry, commissioned a memorial statue by Augustus St. Gaudens, which was placed in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C.
After her father's death in 1885, Clover suffered from an overwhelming depression, an illness that seemed to plague a number of her family members. In early December of 1885, she took her own life. Henry Adams erected a memorial monument to Clover by Augustus St. Gaudens in Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C. According to a blog post by “Jen”, the statue, called “Grief”, received many requests for reproductions, which Mr. Adams refused. Secretly, Eduard L.A. Pausch, made a copy of the sculpture, which was sold to Felix Agnus, from Baltimore. It was installed in the nearby Druid Ridge Cemetery.
Of course, several rumors sprang up, such as “If you look the woman in the eyes, you will go blind”, and “If you sit in her lap at midnight you will die shortly thereafter.
The Massachusetts Historical Society gathered as many of her images as they could and organized the collection into three albums and a variety of loose photographs. Some of these photographs may be viewed online and serious researchers may request to view the works in person.
A request to show some of Marian Adams’ photos on this website has been sent. If/when approval arrives, they will be attached to this page.
Henry Adams In His Study, by Marian Hooper Adams, August 1883, 12.2 cm x 19.8 cm
From the Marian Hooper Adams photographs. Photo. 50.117 Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society,
View of sailboat, Dandelion, with Charles Francis Adams 3rd. Photograph by Marian Hooper Adams, 1883. Album page: 17.4 cm x 25.2 cm; photograph: 11.7 cm x 19.3 cm. From the Marian Hooper Adams photographs. Photo. 50.48. (Album 8, page 1), "Wests' Beach, G.C. Adams' cat boat" written by Marian Hooper Adams. From the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society.