Bourne, Randolph Silliman (30 May 1886–22 December 1918), writer and social critic, was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, the son of Charles Rogers Bourne and Sarah Barrett. From the start, Bourne’s life was star-crossed. At birth his face was severely deformed, and spinal tuberculosis at age four stunted his growth and left him with a misshapened back. His alcoholic father, a failure at various small businesses, left the family when Bourne was a boy. He was raised by his mother and devoted aunt. Bourne turned to books and friends and graduated from high school in 1903 as the valedictorian and senior class president....
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Article
Bourne, Randolph Silliman (1886-1918), writer and social critic
Bruce Clayton
Article
Chamberlain, John (1903-1995), journalist, literary critic, and author
Ray E. Boomhower
Chamberlain, John (28 October 1903–09 April 1995), journalist, literary critic, and author, was born John Rensselaer Chamberlain in New Haven, Connecticut, the only son of Robert Chamberlain, a furniture store owner, and Emily Davis Chamberlain. He was educated in New Haven's public schools, and his family spent summers at Morris Cove, near New Haven's harbor, where he learned to sail. When Chamberlain reached the seventh grade, his father decided to send him to a new private academy, the Loomis Institute, located in Windsor, Connecticut. At Loomis, Chamberlain played football and served as editor in chief of the ...
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Cowley, Malcolm (1898-1989)
Maker: Carl Van Vechten
In
Malcolm Cowley Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1963. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-106863).
Article
Cowley, Malcolm (1898-1989), literary critic and editor
Robert L. Gale
Cowley, Malcolm (24 August 1898–28 March 1989), literary critic and editor, was born in a farmhouse near Belsano, Pennsylvania, the son of William Cowley, a homeopathic physician, and Josephine Hutmacher. After attending Pittsburgh public schools, in which he began a lifelong friendship with the critic ...
Article
Dennie, Joseph (1768-1812), essayist, critic, and editor
Jeffrey H. Richards
Dennie, Joseph (30 August 1768–07 January 1812), essayist, critic, and editor, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph Dennie, a merchant, and Mary Green. To avoid the hostilities that threatened Boston, the family moved in 1775 to Lexington, Massachusetts, where they remained. In 1783 Dennie was sent back to Boston to prepare for a commercial career. After working for James Swan, Dennie went to live and study with the Reverend Samuel West of Needham, who prepared him for college. Dennie entered Harvard in 1787 as a sophomore; although suspended for the spring term in 1790 for insubordination to the tutors, he managed to graduate on time by continuing his studies with another minister in Groton. Soured by his collegiate experience, Dennie frequently denounced Harvard in both public and private writings....
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Eckman, Frederick (1924-1996)
In
Frederick Eckman. Photograph by Martha Eckman, 27 Oct. 1989. Courtesy of Martha Eckman and David Adams.
Article
Eckman, Frederick (1924-1996), poet, editor, scholar, and teacher
David J. Adams
Eckman, Frederick (27 October 1924–28 October 1996), poet, editor, scholar, and teacher, was born Frederick Willis Eckman in Continental, Ohio, the son of Hector B. Eckman, a mechanic, and Helen E. Osborn Eckman. Fred Eckman grew up in the environs of small-town, rural Ohio and attended public schools. His affinity for language and the dramatic emerged early. He read voraciously, and schoolmates recall impromptu dramatic productions in barns and garages. During World War II, he served as a surgical technician in the U.S. Army and enrolled in premedical courses at the University of Florida. Following his discharge in 1946, Eckman enrolled at Ohio State University, majoring in English. He married Mary Louise Drummer Campbell in March of 1947; a son, Thomas Frederick Eckman, was born the following October....
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Eliot, T. S. (26 September 1888–04 January 1965)
In
T.S. Eliot. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-109122).
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Eliot, T. S. (26 September 1888–04 January 1965), poet, critic, and editor
Ronald Bush
Eliot, T. S. (26 September 1888–04 January 1965), poet, critic, and editor, was born Thomas Stearns Eliot in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Henry Ware Eliot, president of the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company, and Charlotte Champe Stearns, a former teacher, an energetic social work volunteer at the Humanity Club of St. Louis, and an amateur poet with a taste for ...
Article
Freeman, Joseph (1897-1965), writer
Norman Markowitz
Freeman, Joseph (07 October 1897–09 August 1965), writer, was born Joseph Lvovovitch in Ukraine, Russia, the son of Isaac Lvovovitch, a merchant, and Stella (maiden name unknown). After experiencing poverty and brutal anti-Semitism in Ukraine as a child, Freeman came to the United States in 1904 and grew up in Brooklyn, where he faced anti-Semitism from other immigrant groups and teachers. His father changed the family name after they immigrated. Growing up in a world where his father rose to become a prosperous builder, Freeman found himself combining aspirations for higher educational and professional status with a mix of socialist and labor Zionist beliefs. Influenced by this background, Freeman considered himself a socialist when he entered Columbia College in 1916 to study literature....
Article
Fuller, Hoyt William (1927-1981), editor and literary critic
James A. Miller
Fuller, Hoyt William (10 September 1927–11 May 1981), editor and literary critic, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Thomas Fuller and Lillie Beatrice Ellafair Thomas. A member of the African-American middle class, Fuller was raised in Detroit, Michigan, and came of age against the backdrop of the violent race riots in that city in 1943....
Article
Gilder, Jeannette Leonard (1849-1916), editor, literary critic, and author
William J. Hug
Gilder, Jeannette Leonard (03 October 1849–17 January 1916), editor, literary critic, and author, was born in Flushing, New York, the daughter of Reverend William Henry Gilder, the principal of a Long Island seminary for girls, and Jane Nutt. Because of frequent changes in employment, Reverend Gilder moved about considerably during Jeannette’s childhood; he left the seminary in Flushing to take Methodist congregations in Redding and in Fair Haven, Pennsylvania, then later opened another school in Yonkers, New York. Jeannette’s childhood years were spent in Flushing and in Bordentown, New Jersey, the home of her mother’s family; there Jeannette received most of her erratic education. The Gilders settled permanently in Bordentown after the death of Reverend Gilder, in 1864, from smallpox contracted while he served as a Methodist chaplain in the Union army....
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Loveman, Amy (16 May 1881–11 December 1955)
Maker: Clara Sipprell
In
Amy Loveman (16 May 1881–11 December 1955), by Clara Sipprell, 1940
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; bequest of Phyllis Fenner
Article
Loveman, Amy (16 May 1881–11 December 1955), editor and literary critic
Ronald S. Marmarelli
Loveman, Amy (16 May 1881–11 December 1955), editor and literary critic, was born in New York City, the daughter of Adolph P. Loveman, a cotton broker, and Adassa Heilprin. In 1901 she received an A.B. from Barnard College. Remaining in New York City, she worked as a volunteer in a settlement house and as a tutor, then assisted Louis Heilprin, her uncle, in editing and revising reference books. In 1915 she began working at the ...
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Mencken, H. L. (1880-1956)
Maker: Carl Van Vechten
In
H. L. Mencken Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1932. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-42489).
Article
Mencken, H. L. (1880-1956), author, editor, and journalist
Fred Hobson
Mencken, H. L. (12 September 1880–29 January 1956), author, editor, and journalist, was born Henry Louis Mencken in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of August Mencken, a cigar manufacturer, and Anna Abhau. Having emigrated from Germany during the mid-nineteenth century, the Menckens and Abhaus had quickly adapted to life in the United States, and they provided a home more Victorian than German-American for their four children. Henry Mencken, the eldest, did attend a private German school for his earliest education, but he completed his formal education at Baltimore Polytechnic, a high school primarily responsible for producing engineers and technicians....
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Morley, Christopher Darlington (1890-1957)
Maker: Arnold Genthe
In
Christopher Morley Photograph by Arnold Genthe, 1930. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-G412-T-5716-017).
Article
Morley, Christopher Darlington (1890-1957), man of letters and editor
Robert L. Gale
Morley, Christopher Darlington (05 May 1890–28 March 1957), man of letters and editor, was born in Haverford, Pennsylvania, the son of Frank Morley, a mathematics professor at Haverford College, and Lilian Janet Bird, a musician and poet. She taught him to read, and he soon became a voracious reader. The family moved in 1900 to Baltimore, Maryland, where Morley’s father taught at Johns Hopkins University and Morley attended school and frequented the Enoch Pratt Library. He enrolled at Haverford College in 1906, published in the school’s ...
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Poe, Edgar Allan (19 January 1809–07 October 1849)
In
Edgar Allan Poe Photograph by W. S. Hartshorn, 1848. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-104482).
Article
Poe, Edgar Allan (19 January 1809–07 October 1849), fiction writer, poet, and critic
Kenneth Silverman
Poe, Edgar Allan (19 January 1809–07 October 1849), fiction writer, poet, and critic, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the second son of David Poe, Jr., and Elizabeth Arnold, actors. During an engagement in New York, David Poe deserted his family. Within two years, Eliza gave birth to a daughter—by another man, it was rumored—and fell seriously ill, perhaps from an infectious fever. Likely with her children present, she died in Richmond, Virginia, on 8 December 1811, at the age of twenty-four....
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