A Shining Light
The remarkable life of Maude Adams (1872–1953)
By Claire Prasad (’18)
“It is one of the many blessings of life in the theater that we are delightfully busy being someone else, and need have scarcely an inkling of ourselves. That doubtful pleasure can always be deferred. And what a mercy! If we really knew ourselves, how could we endure it?”
So begins the 1926 essay “The One I Knew the Least” by actress Maude Adams, an account of her journey and experiences from the perspective of an outsider.
At the turn of the 20th century, Maude Adams was a household name. She delighted audiences, performing for sold-out crowds on Broadway and becoming the highest-paid performer of her time. Throughout her life, even after she retired from acting, Adams maintained her involvement in theater as an inventor, stage designer, and educator. But before she was known around the world, Adams was a student at Salt Lake Collegiate Institute, which would later become Westminster University.
At Salt Lake Collegiate Institute, Adams, who had appeared in her first play as a two-month-old in her mother’s arms, was immediately recognized for her exceptional talent. A childhood spent acting set her apart from her peers, and she was soon recruited to help other students with memorizing and reciting speeches and poetry. Adams described the experience in “The One I Knew the Least,” referring to herself in the third person:
“I suppose it was inevitable, but because she had been in the theater she was a child apart, and though she was given certain privileges, she was also given certain responsibilities. The children who were to recite at Commencement were put in her charge to be trained for their ‘pieces,’ though the children were her own age, some of them older.”
Although Adams described herself as a “child apart,” she was popular at school amongst her peers and teachers. Professor Jesse Millspaugh, the principal of Salt Lake Collegiate Institute at the time, described Adams as an “excellent scholar... brilliant in dramatic recitations, with a total ignorance of her power.” Another teacher, Mary Moore, urged Adams to continue her education and pursue a career as an acting teacher at Salt Lake Collegiate Institute, claiming that Adams would be highly successful and well-compensated. Despite this, Adams left Salt Lake Collegiate Institute shortly after her father died, moving directly into her career as an actress.
Adams’s career took her from San Francisco to New York City, where she began her meteoric rise to stardom. She acted in many plays on and off Broadway, and her varied experiences included several roles as male characters. She played the leading role of Napoleon II of France in the 1900 play L'Aiglon and assumed the role of a rooster in the 1911 play Chantecler.
In 1904, Adams starred as Peter Pan in J.M. Barrie’s play Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, becoming the first person to play Peter Pan on Broadway. This role became one of Adams’s favorites and the one she is most closely associated with today.
After retiring from acting due to a severe illness, Adams worked with General Electric to design more powerful and improved stage lighting. Her patented lighting designs were later adopted as the industry standard in Hollywood in the late 1920s. Later in her life, Adams became a beloved theater instructor and the well-respected head of the drama department at Stephens College in Missouri.
Over the decades, many people tried to gain insight into Adams’s personal life, but she remained intensely private and rarely gave interviews. She never married but had several long-term romantic relationships with women, including the editor Louise Boynton who shares a grave with Adams in Long Island, New York.
As she reflected on her life and the many locations that she called home, Adams cited Salt Lake City as one of her favorites.
“Apart from the life in the theater there are two cities that hold very tender memories. One, in a lovely valley protected by friendly mountains, is always home. The people of the valley have gentle manners, as if their spirits moved with dignity. Their forbears suffered great hardness in the search for their haven, but those who survived found peace and plenty in the beautiful Valley of Salt Lake. And their children have inherited the gentleness that comes from having endured hardness. The memory of them, the thought of them and their lovely valley is an anchor in a changing, roving life.”
About the Westminster Review
The Westminster Review is Westminster University’s bi-annual alumni magazine that is distributed to alumni and community members. Each issue aims to keep alumni updated on campus current events and highlights the accomplishments of current students, professors, and Westminster alum.
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