Adams, Evangeline

Adams, Evangeline



(1865–1932)

Practitioner and publicist of astrology, credited with giving it respectable status in the United States. She belonged to a prominent family in Massachusetts and was descended from John Quincy Adams, the sixth president. During convalescence from a long illness, she met Dr. J. Heber Smith, a physician who used horoscopes as a diagnostic aid. He studied hers, told her she could be an outstanding astrologer, and trained her in the art.
She took him at his word and set up as a consultant, moving in 1899 to New York City, where her warning of impending disaster for a hotel where she stayed (it was burnt the following day) was widely reported and established her reputation. She operated from a studio in Carnegie Hall, and secured the repeal of a city statute banning fortune-telling.
Her social contacts brought in rich clients and substantial fees. One of her devotees was the film star Mary Pickford. J. P. Morgan Jr. used her advice in the conduct of his banking business. In 1930 she began giving radio broadcasts, and soon afterwards she published a manual, Astrology for Everyone. Her fame contributed to the birth of newspaper astrology.
Though she impressed individual clients, her successful forecasts of public events were only occasional. In 1931 she predicted that the United States would be at war within eleven years—correct, and mildly interesting, since eleven is a curious number to think of, and the natural ten would not quite have extended to December 1941. About the same time she made some observations on Edward, Prince of Wales, saying he was liable to run into trouble because of an interest in married women who would not be able to share his throne when he became king. Thus it turned out five years later when, as Edward VIII, he determined to marry an American named Wallis Simpson quickly after her divorce was finalized. The British government and the royal family refused to accept her as a potential queen, and he was forced to abdicate after reigning less than a year.
Like another popular prophet, Jeane Dixon, Evangeline Adams made several fairly accurate forecasts of the death of well-known people. These included the great operatic tenor Caruso, and, apparently, herself.