Gretchen Adams is a native of Rhode Island who wandered away to the far west to complete her B.A. and M.A. degrees in History at the University of Oregon and briefly returned to New England to complete a doctorate in U.S. History at the University of New Hampshire under the direction of Ellen Fitzpatrick in 2001.

After teaching for a year at Simmons College in Boston she accepted a position at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

While at TTU she has received the “Alumni Association New Faculty Award” (2005) and teaches courses in eighteenth and nineteenth century political and cultural history at the undergraduate and graduate level.  Her students are notable for their ability to find a link between Rhode Island and any important American  event in the period from 1630-1877, being able to locate the nation’s smallest (some would say best) state on a map, their familiarity with the wide variety of pejorative nicknames applied to the state over 200 years---and for their good humor. 

Professor Adams was recently tenured and promoted to Associate Professor of History at TTU.

Adams’ research interest continues to focus on  the role of the British colonial past in American memory. The Specter of Salem, published in 2008 by the University of Chicago Press, is her first monograph.   In early 2009 two other projects Adams is involved with will be published: 

“Creating the Republican Child” which examines the role of the common schoolbook in the nationalization of American children after the Revolution will appear in James Marten (ed.) “Children and Youth in a New Nation” (NYU Press)

“The Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt” is the first complete scholarly edition of the records of the 1692 witchcraft trials. Adams served as an Associate Editor on the edition under the direction of Editor-in-Chief Bernard Rosenthal (Cambridge)

In 2008-09 Professor Adams is on leave from teaching and is away from campus working on a variety of projects that include two book projects and a scholarly edition: