Material in this series, along with Adams's lectures, paint a fairly complete picture of his activities at Hopkins. It includes administrative records, papers turned in by Adams's students, and a typescript copy of the Historical Seminary minutes. The originals of the minutes are in the University Archives. A microfilm copy is available in the Audio/Visual Department, film #2735, 2736. The Seminary minutes have been edited by Marvin Gettleman and published.

Adams played a number of roles at Hopkins. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he conducted the Seminary of Historical and Political Science. The Seminary consisted of a group of full-time graduate students in history and political science. Original papers on historical and political subjects, and methods and products of research were presented and discussed in this forum. Some of the papers were later published in the Studies in Historical and Political Science.

In November 1881, the noted English historian, Edward A. Freeman, visited Baltimore, and lectured to graduate students at Hopkins. Manuscript copies of his remarks on American institutional history and French and English towns are in this series.

Adams edited the Studies from their institution in 1882 until his death in 1901. Manuscripts submitted for publication are contained in this series. The manuscripts by Charles Levermore and George Brown did appear in the series. The anonymous history of Baltimore was not published. It is assumed that they came to Adams because of his editorial skills.

Adams collected articles by his former students. These, too, were made available to the Seminary. A complete list of authors and may be found in the container list.

The Seminary Library housed a newspaper bureau instituted by Adams. Articles on economic, political, social, legal, historical and educational subjects were cut out and pasted on sheets of brown paper. The articles were indexed, arranged alphabetically, and placed in open pamphlet boxes to be browsed at will. These clippings are part of this series.

As de facto chairman of the history department, Adams performed various administrative tasks. He set guidelines for graduate and undergraduate degrees, organized lectures, kept a list of Ph.D. dissertation topics, and oversaw the Historical and Political Science Association. Items in this series document these tasks