Evangeline Adams

Evangeline Adams, born on 8 February 1868 at 8:30 am in Jersey City, New Jersey, was perhaps the best known American astrologer of her day. At a time when women were for the most part considered their husband’s property and consigned to the kitchen, church, and bedroom, Evangeline Adams ran a hugely profitable and astrological consulting successful business as well as writing several books about the subject and her autobiography, “The Bowl of Heaven”.

Because Adams’s biography was primarily a way to promote her astrological business, there is not much known about her personal life. In order to determine who the true Evangeline was, one must read between the lines of her books. The only mention she makes of her father was that he died when she was 15 months old and just prior to his death he lost most of his fortune through no fault of his own, although she does not elaborate on the subject. Evangeline, perhaps, did not feel that she had to justify herself to anyone, so she didn’t. Before Adams began working as an astrologer full time, she became engaged to a man, Mr Lord, who it is believed was also her employer. Although she was in love with the man initially, her autobiography states that she lost any feelings that she had for him and subsequently broke the engagement. In 19th century Boston, breaking an engagement was tantamount to divorce, and it was seen as a scandal that not only she, but her family would have to endure.

Adams was born into a very conservative family and some of her relatives were Congregationalist ministers, which were the successors to the Massachusetts Colony’s Puritans. Because of her rather proper upbringing, she no doubt must have encountered conflicting emotions when she gave up the promised security and stability of marriage to study astrology with Dr Smith and eventually open up her own business to lead an independent life of her own.

Aside from her broken engagement, probably the greatest scandal to affect Ms Adams was her arrest for fortune-telling in New York in 1914. Although practicing astrology was not legalised at that time, Adams was acquitted and set a precedent that if an astrologer practiced in a professional matter he or she was not guilty of any wrong-doing.