Born: 22 October 1875, United States
Died: 17 July 1937
Country most active: International
Also known as: NA
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Harriet C. Adams, an American explorer and lecturer, born at Stockton, Calif. She traveled through Mexico and became a student of Latin American affairs in 1900, after which she made a three years’ journey through Central and South America, traveling forty thousand miles, visiting every country and reaching many points before unknown to any white woman. After lecturing in the United States in 1906 – 1908, she crossed Haiti in saddle, 1910, and then traveled through the Philippines, and from Siberia to Sumatra, studying ancient races allied with earliest America peoples.
In 1916 she became a war correspondent at the French front, and in 1917 again lectured throughout the United States.
Mrs. Adams is a fellow and member of various geographical and scientific associations throughout the world.
IW note: As a correspondent for Harper’s Magazine in Europe during World War I, Adams was the only female journalist allowed to visit the trenches.
Despite her achievements, the New York-based Explorers Club rejected Adams and other prominent female adventurers. Men “have always been so afraid that some mere woman might penetrate their sanctums of discussion that they don’t even permit women in their clubhouses,” Adams once said, “much less allow them to attend any meetings for discussions that might be mutually helpful.” Several female explorers formed the Society of Woman Geographers in 1925, with Adams as president until she moved to France in 1933.