Walter Adams was a faculty member in the Department from 1947 until his retirement in 1993. Adams was born in Vienna, emigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1935 (at the age of 13), where they settled in Brooklyn. He earned a B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1942, spent one year in graduate school at the University of Chicago before joining the U.S. Army in 1943. After serving in Europe during WWII, for which he received a battlefield commission as a lieutenant and the Bronze Star, Adams entered graduate school at Yale University and received his Ph.D. in 1947, after which he came to Michigan State College.
Adams’ research concerned industrial organization and antitrust economics, with research papers published in The American Economic Review, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and The Yale Law Journal, among many others. His book of collected case studies, The Structure of American Industry, was first published in 1950 and had 13 editions, the last continued by James Brock after Adams’ death. Other notable books include Monopoly in America: The Government as Promoter (with H. Gray, 1955), The Brain Drain (1968), and The Bigness Complex (with J. Brock, 1986). Later in his career Adams and Brock turned to plays to illustrate antitrust policy including Antitrust Economics on Trial (1991) and The Tobacco Wars (1999).
Adams was extremely active in the profession. From 1953 to 1955, he served on the U.S. Attorney General's Committee to Study Antitrust Laws. He was a past president of the American Association of University Professors and the Association for Social Economics. MSU awarded him the title Distinguished University Professor in 1970.
Walter Adams was a dedicated teacher above all else. An esteemed and challenging instructor, his class EC 444, Private Enterprise and Public Policy, became a “must do” experience at MSU for some 10,000 students. In 1986, he was chosen by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as professor of the year in Michigan. In 1991, he was named one of the country's top 10 professors by Rolling Stone magazine.
With the departure of long-time President John Hannah to the federal government in 1969, the Board of Trustees asked Adams to serve as MSU President, which he did for one year (1969-1970). Despite requests from Board members, faculty, and students to continue in that role, Adams elected to return to his position as Professor of Economics. He chronicled that tumultuous year as President in the book The Test (1971).
Outside of economics, Adams was a very visible and enthusiastic supporter of MSU athletics and the Spartan Marching Band. Adams was made an “honorary” member of the band, and for the 1988 Rose Bowl Parade was selected by the band as one of two people to carry the Big Ten Banner at the front. Adams was a fixture at MSU football games, cheering the team from his regular seats and congratulating the team near the goalposts as they left the field. At Jenison Fieldhouse, Adams’ seats behind the opponent’s bench provided opportunity to offer advice to the coach. After Indiana coach Bob Knight tried to have Adams removed, they developed a life-long friendship.
Walter Adams and his wife Pauline, herself a Professor of American Thought and Language, lived in East Lansing. Their son, William James Adams, is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. Adams died in 1998.