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Frank Adams papers
WRCA 024
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Title: Frank Adams papers
Date (inclusive): 1889-1962
Collection Number: WRCA 024
Creator:
Adams, Frank, 1875-1967
Extent:
17 linear feet
37 boxes
Repository:
Rivera Library. Special Collections Department.
Riverside, CA 92517-5900
Abstract: The Frank Adams papers consist of files regarding his work in the subjects of irrigation, agriculture, and land settlement
projects. The materials include the following formats: reports, reprints, correspondence, clippings, and notes, and historical
and statistical data. The content includes materials from his projects in Palestine, the western United States with a particular
focus on California. There is extensive information on University of California Irrigation Investigations in California.
Languages: The collection is in English
The collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to the University of California, Riverside Libraries, Special Collections & University Archives.
Distribution or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission
of the copyright owners. To the extent other restrictions apply, permission for distribution or reproduction from the applicable
rights holder is also required. Responsibility for obtaining permissions, and for any use rests exclusively with the user.
[identification of item], [date if possible]. Frank Adams papers (WRCA 024). Water Resources Collections and Archives. Special
Collections & University Archives, University of California, Riverside.
Provenance unknown.
Frank Adams was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 19, 1875. He attended Cogswell High School in San Francisco until 1892,
when his family moved from San Francisco to a farm near the Santa Cruz Mountains. He entered Stanford University in 1896 and
graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1901. In 1906, he received his master's degree from the University of Nebraska.
Adams worked as a field investigator for the U.S. Office of Experiment Stations in Washington, D.C. for several years between
his Stanford and Nebraska degrees. From 1906 to 1910 he worked with his brother in a successful lighting-fixture venture.
In 1910 Adams again became affiliated with the Office of Experiment stations, through which he had a great deal of contact
with the University of California. In 1916, he received an official appointment with the University of California as the head
of the Division of Irrigation Investigations and Practice in the College of Agriculture, a position he held for 29 years.
Adams also served as an irrigation economist for the California Agricultural Experiment Station and the Giannini Foundation
of Agricultural Economics. From 1926 to 1940 he served as a consulting engineer and economist for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
and in 1927 went to Palestine as a member of the Advisory Committee on Agricultural Colonization. In 1928, Adams was an advisor
to the International Water Commission for the United States and Mexico, and also advised the National Resources Committee
in the Rio Grande Joint Investigation. He retired from UC in 1945 and in 1947 received the John Deere Gold Medal for outstanding
achievement in agriculture, given by the American Society of Agricultural Engineers.
In 1949, the University of California awarded Adams with an honorary doctorate in laws and letters. At that time, University
of California president Robert Gordon Sproul described Adams as a "pioneer in the application of engineering and economics
to the problems of agriculture."
In 1959, Adams' oral history, Frank Adams, University of California, on Irrigation, Reclamation, and Water Administration,was
published by the Regional Oral History Project, University of California, Berkeley.
Frank Adams was a distinguished professor of irrigation and an international consultant on agriculture, who was key to the
development, distribution, and use of water in the West. He died on January 26, 1967 at the age of 91.
The collection consists of reports, reprints, correspondence, clippings, and notes, concerning water, irrigation, and land
settlement projects in California, the Western States, and Palestine; drafts of legislation pertaining to water, water rights,
and irrigation districts; minutes of meetings of various sections of the Commonwealth Club of California; historical and statistical
data on California irrigation districts; and, extensive information on University of California Irrigation Investigations
in California.
Note: There are no items numbered: 75, 159, 166, 187, 192, 211, 243, 412, 470, or 491.
The collection is arranged into three series as follows:
- Series 1. Documents, 1901-1958
- Series 2. Correspondence File, 1912-1955
- Series 3. Columbia Basin Project Joint Investigations materials, 1932-1943
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the
library's online public access catalog.
University of California (1868-1952). College of Agriculture
Commonwealth Club of California
Irrigation -- California -- History
Irrigation -- West (U.S.)
Irrigation districts -- California
Irrigation laws -- United States
Land settlement -- California
Reclamation of land -- West (U.S.) -- History
Water -- Law and legislation -- California
Water resources development -- West (U.S.)
Water rights -- California
Correspondence
Notes
Reports