Notable Women in American History: A Guide to Recommended Biographies and Autobiographies by Lynda G. Adamson; Greenwood Press, 1999

Actor Salt Lake City, Utah Maude Adams was an actor. She was born Maude Kiskadden on November 11, 1872, the youngest and only surviving child of a businessman and his actor wife. Adams got a job as an actor at age five in a San Francisco melodrama production and was often billed as "Little Maude" while playing with stock companies until she became too tall at age ten. Her father's sudden death when she was 11 cemented her decision to become a great actor as soon as possible, and she left school to tour in a stock company with her mother. Five years later, she reached New York. Charles Frohman noted her talent and hired her to play light comedies for four seasons. Adams carefully studied her roles and approached her profession seriously. Frohman knew the Scottish playwright James Barrie, and when Barrie saw Adams, he immediately adapted his novel The Little Minister as a stage play. Adams successfully played the title role and began working with Barrie, acting in Peter Pan and four other plays. She enjoyed his use of fantasy to reach a spiritual truth in his drama and changed Peter Pan's London costume to a round collar and a peaked hat. She also performed other dramatists' plays; for one she received 22 curtain calls at the opening performance. In 1918, she fell ill with influenza, and after her recovery, she stopped acting until 1931. After performing in radio plays, she became a lighting designer, and working with General Electric, helped develop the incandescent bulb used in color film. Lastly, she taught drama at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. At her death, she donated her estate to the Cenacle Convent in New York City.

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