AUTOGRAPH: Close of a letter with sentiments SIGNED by the muckraking investigative journalist SAMUEL HOPKINS ADAMS who also penned several scandalous novels.

The American writer and muckraking investigative journalist Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871-1958) started his career with the New York Sun. Moving on, his subsequent articles for McClure's magazine exposing the conditions of public health in the U.S. earned him a reputation as a muckraker. He worked with Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, and Ray Stannard Baker on McClure's editorial staff. Collier's hired him to prepare a series of 11 articles on patent medicine which were published as "The Great American Fraud". Although his articles led to the passing of the "Pure Food and Drug Act" in 1906, the Supreme Court later ruled that the prohibition of falsifications referred only to the ingredients in the medicine. Adams pursued the subject, wrote another series of articles and, in 1914, wrote "The Clarion", an article criticizing newspapers for printing advertisements for such medicines. Starting in the 1920's, Adams wrote several risque novels about young women "flappers" under the pseudonym of Warner Fabian. Bestsellers with Jazz Age youth, these novels freely explored the sexual urges of young women with shocking frankness. Many of these novels were subsequently made into movies. Colleen Moore starred in "Flaming Youth", Mary Astor in "Sailors' Wives", and Clara Bow in "The Wild Party".