William Taylor Adams/ Warren T. Ashton/ Oliver Optic

William Taylor Adams (1822 – 1897), pseudonym Oliver Optic, was a noted academic, author, and Massachusetts state legislator. He was born in Medway, Massachusetts in 1822 to Captain Laban Adams and Catherine Johnson Adams. He became a teacher in the Boston, Massachusetts public schools in 1845, and remained in that capacity through 1865. In 1846, he married Sarah Jenkins, with whom he had two children. He served as a member of the School Board of Dorchester, Massachusetts, for 14 years. In 1869, he became a member of the Massachusetts General Court.
His first book, Hatchie, the Guardian Slave (1853), was published under the pseudonym of Warren T. Ashton
He wrote more than 100 books of fiction for boys under the pseudonym "Oliver Optic," published in large part as series in Oliver Optic's Magazine, of which he was the editor.
Among the more popular titles were:
• Indoors and Out (1855)
• The Boat Club (1855)
• Young America Abroad
• The Starry Flag
• Onward and Upward
• The Yacht Club

Other titles included stories about the Civil War. He also wrote two novels, The Way of the World and Living Too Fast.
Adams' writing was criticized by Louisa May Alcott[1], among others. Alcott used her story Eight Cousins to deplore Adams' use of slang, his cast of bootblacks and newsboys, and his stories of police courts and saloons. Adams responded in kind, pointing out Alcott's own use of slang and improbable plot twists.
[1]Louisa May Alcott (1832 – 1888) was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys. Little Women was set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, and published in 1868. This novel is loosely based on her childhood experiences with her three sisters.