Bostwick, Arthur Elmore (08 March 1860–13 February 1942), editor and librarian, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the son of David Elmore Bostwick, a physician, and Adelaide McKinley. Bostwick took advantage of the cultural assets in his hometown, reading periodicals from a neighbor’s private library, studying romance and classical languages, participating in music ensembles, and attending the Episcopal church where his mother was organist. His innate intellectual abilities were thus stimulated, laying the foundation for an active life of the mind. He attended Yale College, won the first Silliman Fellowship in physical science, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, and earned a B.A. in 1881 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1883. Aspiring to a college professorship, he declined an appointment as a Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University in favor of a temporary position at Yale but, when a permanent post was not forthcoming, he moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where he taught high school from 1884 to 1886. In 1885 Bostwick married Lucy Sawyer, with whom he had three children....
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Bostwick, Arthur Elmore (1860-1942), editor and librarian
John Mark Tucker
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Duyckinck, Evert Augustus (1816-1878), editor, author, and bibliophile
Robert L. Gale
Duyckinck, Evert Augustus (23 November 1816–13 August 1878), editor, author, and bibliophile, was born in New York City, the son of Evert Duyckinck, a wealthy publisher and book collector, and Harriet June. He graduated from Columbia College in 1835. He either wrote or cowrote the only issue of ...
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Duyckinck, George Long (1823-1863), author and editor
David J. Nordloh
Duyckinck, George Long (17 October 1823–30 March 1863), author and editor, was born in New York City, the son of Evert Duyckinck, book publisher, and Harriet June. Duyckinck, whose reputation has been almost eclipsed by that of his older brother, the more outgoing and prolific ...
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Fields, James Thomas (1817-1881), publisher, editor, writer, and lecturer
Rita K. Gollin
Fields, James Thomas (31 December 1817–24 April 1881), publisher, editor, writer, and lecturer, was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the son of Michael Fields, a sea captain, and Margaret Beck Fields. His father died at sea before James's fourth birthday, leaving his devoted mother little more than the modest house where she raised her two sons. A gregarious and book-loving boy, James completed high school at the age of thirteen, then headed for Boston. Although college was never an option, a family friend arranged what turned out to be the next best thing: an apprenticeship with the booksellers Carter and Hendee at what is still known as the Old Corner Bookstore. Remaining at that workplace after Carter and Hendee sold out to Allen and Ticknor in 1832, and after ...
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Folsom, Charles (1794-1872), librarian and editor
Kenneth E. Carpenter
Folsom, Charles (24 December 1794–08 November 1872), librarian and editor, was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, the son of James Folsom and Sarah Gilman (occupations unknown). After preparation at Phillips Exeter Academy, Folsom entered Harvard College as a sophomore in 1810. He taught school at Sudbury during winter vacations and graduated from Harvard in 1813. He then taught at the academy in Hallowell, Maine, and in the fall of 1814 returned to Cambridge to study divinity. After giving that up, he made arrangements to study medicine, but instead, on the recommendation of Harvard president John T. Kirkland, sailed in 1816 to the Mediterranean on the 74-gun ship of the line ...
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Ford, Guy Stanton (1873-1962), historian, editor, and academic administrator
Benjamin L. Alpers
Ford, Guy Stanton (09 May 1873–29 December 1962), historian, editor, and academic administrator, was born in Liberty Corners, Salem Township, Wisconsin, the son of Thomas D. Ford, a medical doctor, and Helen E. Shumway, a teacher. During Guy’s early childhood, his father’s drinking and business failures forced his mother, with her two sons, to move in with a series of relatives, eventually leading them to Sutherland, Iowa, in 1883. Shortly thereafter his father moved to Plainfield, Iowa, a town of about 300 people. In 1884 the family reunited in Plainfield. Thomas Ford was an extremely impractical man and the family lived in relative poverty throughout Guy’s years in Plainfield....
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Garraty, John A. (04 July 1920–19 December 2007)
Mark C. Carnes
Garraty, John A. (04 July 1920–19 December 2007), historian and editor, was born John Arthur Garraty in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Arthur (Hap) Garraty, a foreman for a moving company, and Helen Tobias, a school secretary. Arthur Garraty died when John was eight. The boy attended local schools and graduated from Erasmus Hall (a public high school) in 1937. That year he enrolled at Brooklyn College and graduated in 1941. During World War II Garraty served as a swimming instructor in the Merchant Marine. In 1945 he married Joan Perkins; the couple had three children....
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Henry, Caleb Sprague (1804-1884), educator, pastor, and author
Steven L. Porter
Henry, Caleb Sprague (02 August 1804–09 March 1884), educator, pastor, and author, was born in Rutland, Massachusetts, the son of Silas Henry and Dorothy Pierce. Henry received his A.B. from Dartmouth in 1825 and later studied at Andover Theological Seminary. At twenty-four years of age, Henry was ordained a pastor in the Congregational denomination and served at churches in Greenfield, Mississippi (1829–1831), and in West Hartford, Connecticut (1833–1835). Henry was a proponent of the peace movement and in 1834 wrote the pamphlet ...
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Johnson, Allen (1870-1931), historian and editor
Clyde W. Barrow
Johnson, Allen (29 January 1870–18 January 1931), historian and editor, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of Moses Allen Johnson, manager of the Lowell Felting Mills, and Elmira J. Shattuck, a cultivated woman who had mastered New Testament Greek. Johnson attended the Lowell public schools and graduated as high school valedictorian in 1888. He then attended Amherst College, from which he received a B.A. in 1892. Johnson impressed both faculty and students at Amherst with his meticulous, orderly, and methodical scholarship. He was considered more mature than most college students and was always finely dressed, dignified, and cordial in his dealings with others....
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Morgan, Dale Lowell (1914-1971), historian, editor, and bibliographer
David J. Whittaker
Morgan, Dale Lowell (18 December 1914–30 March 1971), historian, editor, and bibliographer, was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of James Lowell Morgan, an office machine salesman, and Emily May Holmes, a schoolteacher. Morgan’s father died when he was six years old, and the burden of caring for the family of four children fell on his mother, who taught in the Salt Lake City public schools. Morgan was a gifted student, but his contracting spinal meningitis at age fourteen seriously changed his life; he was left totally deaf....
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Peck, Harry Thurston (1856-1914), classical scholar and writer
Olive Hoogenboom
Peck, Harry Thurston (24 November 1856–23 March 1914), classical scholar and writer, was born in Stamford, Connecticut, the son of Harry Peck, a schoolteacher, and Harriet Elizabeth Thurston. Enamored by books, he damaged his eyes by reading by candlelight late at night when his parents thought he was sleeping. At Columbia College he was conspicuous for his mental keenness, making its ...
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Smith, Lloyd Pearsall (1822-1886), librarian, publisher, and editor
Donald G. Davis and Jeannette Woodward
Smith, Lloyd Pearsall (06 February 1822–02 July 1886), librarian, publisher, and editor, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of John Jay Smith, a librarian, and Rachel Collins Pearsall. Following graduation from Haverford College at age fifteen, Smith became a bookkeeper and an accountant in the counting house of Waln & Leaming. In 1844 he married Hannah E. Jones, with whom he later adopted a daughter. While still at Waln & Leaming, Smith began publishing, among other works, ...
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Sparks, Jared (1789-1866), historian, editor, and clergyman
Richard J. Cox
Sparks, Jared (10 May 1789–14 March 1866), historian, editor, and clergyman, was born in Willington, Connecticut, the son of Eleanor Orcutt, who nine months later married Joseph Sparks, a farmer. His early life was somewhat unstable. In the mid-1790s he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle to relieve the burdens of the many children in the family, and with his adoptive family, he settled in 1800 in Camden, New York. In 1805 he moved home for a brief time and then went to live with another uncle in Tolland, Connecticut. There he apprenticed as carpenter and taught in local schools. Early on he displayed interests in literary and historical pursuits along with the more common interest in theology. While in Arlington, Vermont, he organized the Arlington Philosophical Society in 1808. He studied at the Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, beginning in September 1809, the result of Sparks’s early interests in the ministry and his receipt of a scholarship. There he met and became lifelong friends with another future New England historian, ...
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Thwaites, Reuben Gold (1853-1913), historian, editor, and librarian
Robert L. Gale
Thwaites, Reuben Gold (15 May 1853–22 October 1913), historian, editor, and librarian, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, the son of William George Thwaites and Sarah Bibbs, farmers. Thwaites’s family had emigrated from Yorkshire, England, three years before his birth. He attended school in Dorchester and in 1866 moved with his parents to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he helped them farm, taught school, and read the equivalent of a program of college courses. He became a reporter on the ...
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Vizetelly, Frank Horace (1864-1938), lexicographer and editor
Ann W. Engar
Vizetelly, Frank Horace (02 April 1864–21 December 1938), lexicographer and editor, was born Francis Horace Vizetelly in Kensington, London, England, to Henry Richard Vizetelly and Elizabeth Anne Ansell, a school teacher. His father, uncle, and two step-brothers were important English journalists, writers, and publishers of Italian descent. From 1865 to 1872 Henry Vizetelly was foreign correspondent to the ...
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Warner, Charles Dudley (1829-1900), author and editor
Robert L. Gale
Warner, Charles Dudley (12 September 1829–20 October 1900), author and editor, was born in Plainfield, Massachusetts, the son of Justus Warner and Sylvia Hitchcock, farmers. In 1837, three years after her husband died, Sylvia Warner took her two sons to a guardian in Charlemont, Massachusetts, and, in 1841, on to her brother in Cazenovia, New York. Warner attended classes at the Oneida Conference Seminary in Cazenovia, enrolled at Hamilton College, and graduated in 1851 with a B.A. While still a student he published articles in the ...
