Marian Hooper Adams

Who was Marian Hooper Adams?

Marian "Clover" Hooper Adams was an American socialite, active society hostess and arbiter of Washington, D.C., and an accomplished amateur photographer.

Clover, who has been cited as the inspiration for writer Henry James's Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady, was married to writer Henry Adams. After her suicide, he commissioned the famous Adams Memorial, which features an enigmatic androgynous bronze sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, to stand at the site of her, and his, grave.

After Clover's death, Adams destroyed all the letters that she had ever written to him and rarely, if ever, spoke of her in public. She was also omitted from his The Education of Henry Adams. However, in letters to her friend Anne Palmer Fell, he opened up about his twelve years of happiness with Clover and his difficulty in dealing with her loss.