ADAMS, HANNAH. Well known in New England during her lifetime, Hannah Adams (1755–1831) has been remembered, if at all, as the first American-born woman to earn her living by writing. However, she also has a preeminent place in the history of the study of religion. Adams wrote three theological and didactic books: The Truth and Excellence of the Christian Religion Exhibited (1804), which offered biographical sketches of "eminent" lay Christians; Concise Account of the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews (1816), which exhorted Americans to evangelize the "lost sheep of the house of Israel"; and Letters on the Gospels (1824), which aimed to help young people "read the New Testament with more pleasure and advantage." As these texts indicate, Adams shared a great deal with other theological liberals during the Early National period. A Congregationalist who sided with the Unitarians, Adams favored a supernatural rationalism that endorsed both...