Harriet Chalmers Adams

Harriet Chalmers Adams (October 22, 1875 – July 17, 1937 As a child, she enjoyed numerous horseback adventures with her father, including a yearlong trip from Oregon to Mexico through the Sierra Nevada Mountains when she was 14.

On October 5, 1899, she married Franklin Pierce Adams, an electrician.

Travels

In 1900, Adams went on her first major expedition, a three-year trip around South America with her husband, during which they visited every country, and traversed the Andes on horseback. Adams chose practical clothing for her explorations, typically wearing pants, boots, and a man's shirt. During her travels, she focused on the customs, folklore, and languages of the peoples she visited, and lived among them, sharing their sleeping customs and food.

In a 1910 trip, she retraced the trail of Christopher Columbus's early discoveries in the Americas, and crossed Haiti on horseback. In 1915, Adams was prepared to board the RMS Lusitania in New York to sail to Liverpool when she received word that her father was ill. She travelled back west to see him, but was still on the ship's manifest and so was reported as "missing" after the ship was torpedoed and sank.

Adams served as a correspondent for Harper's Magazine in Europe during World War I. She was the only female journalist permitted to visit the trenches.