Beer, Thomas (22 November 1888?–18 April 1940), writer, was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of William Collins Beer, a corporate attorney and lobbyist, and Martha Ann Alice Baldwin. Though born in western Iowa, Thomas Beer spent most of his childhood in Yonkers, New York, with summers in Nantucket and on his grandfather’s farm in Bucyrus, Ohio. Wealth and position from his father’s Wall Street business gave Beer a distinct sense of social superiority, which he manifested in personal relations and cultural criticisms. Despising the bourgeoisie, the working-class masses, and the chic lifestyles of the Jazz Age, Beer projected an image of extreme conservatism and tesselated sophistication. At Yale, class of 1911, he was class poet, lifelong friend of the actor Monty Wooley, editor of the literary review, and contributor of twenty stories, essays, and poems. After college he spent five years as a dilatory student in the Columbia law school and as clerk in his father’s law firm, but when his father died at his professional nadir in 1916, Beer turned to letters. His first important short story—“The Brothers”—was published a few months later in the ...
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Beer, Thomas (22 November 1888?–18 April 1940), writer
John Clendenning
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Burk, John Daly (1776?–?11 Apr. 1808), editor, historian, and dramatist
Sally L. Jones
Burk, John Daly (1776?–?11 Apr. 1808), editor, historian, and dramatist, was born in Ireland, arriving in America at the age of twenty. His parents’ names are unknown. He was a student at Trinity College in Dublin, but he was dismissed for “deism and republicanism” and eventually forced to leave Ireland, presumably because of political difficulties. Legend has it that a woman named Miss Daly gave him her female attire to help him escape from the British, hence the use of Daly in his name....
Article
Cary, Mary Ann Camberton Shadd (1823-1893), African-American educator, journalist/editor, and lawyer
Shirley J. Yee
Cary, Mary Ann Camberton Shadd (09 October 1823–05 June 1893), African-American educator, journalist/editor, and lawyer, was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the daughter of Abraham Doras Shadd and Harriet Parnell. Although the eldest of thirteen children, Mary Ann Shadd grew up in comfortable economic circumstances. Little is known about her mother except that she was born in North Carolina in 1806 and was of mixed black and white heritage; whether she was born free or a slave is unknown. Shadd’s father was also of mixed-race heritage. His paternal grandfather, Jeremiah Schad, was a German soldier who had fought in the American Revolution and later married Elizabeth Jackson, a free black woman from Pennsylvania. Abraham Shadd had amassed his wealth as a shoemaker, and his property by the 1830s was valued at $5,000. He was a respected member of the free black community in Wilmington and in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where the family had moved sometime in the 1830s, and he served as a delegate to the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1835 and 1836....
Article
Garreau, Armand (1817-1865), Romantic writer, journalist, and educator
Caryn Cossé Bell
Garreau, Armand (13 September 1817–28 March 1865), Romantic writer, journalist, and educator, was born Louis-Armand Garreau in Cognac, France, the son of Louis-Armand Garreau, a lawyer and veteran of the Napoleonic wars, and Marie Rose Dumontet, a native of Saint-Pierre, Martinique. Apparently Garreau left home at a very early age to receive a classical education in Paris at the Lycée Henri IV. Financial difficulties prevented him from completing law school, but before he left Paris to take up a teaching position in the department of Gironde he encountered a New Orleanian who impressed him with talk of opportunity in Louisiana....
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Goodman, Joseph Thompson (1838-1917), writer, publisher, and archaeologist
Lawrence I. Berkove
Goodman, Joseph Thompson (18 September 1838–01 October 1917), writer, publisher, and archaeologist, was born in Masonville, Delaware County, New York, the son of Caleb Goodman. His mother’s name is unknown. Little is known of his early life. Sometime during the 1850s, Goodman moved west with his brother and father and began to work as a typesetter for the ...
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Lewis, Cornelia “Nell” Battle (28 May 1893–26 Nov. 1956), journalist, lawyer, and educator
Elizabeth Gillespie McRae
Lewis, Cornelia “Nell” Battle (28 May 1893–26 Nov. 1956), journalist, lawyer, and educator, was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, to Richard Henry Lewis, a physician, and his second wife, Mary Gordon Lewis of Albemarle County, Virginia. Nell (as she was always known) was named after Dr. Lewis’s first wife, and raised by his third, Annie Blackwell, along with three older half-brothers and a half-sister. Educated at St. Mary’s School in Raleigh, she excelled at basketball, debating, and writing and served as the editor of the school’s annual publication and monthly magazine, both named ...
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Miller, David Hunter (1875-1961), lawyer, State Department official, and historian
Lawrence E. Gelfand
Miller, David Hunter (02 January 1875–21 July 1961), lawyer, State Department official, and historian, was born in New York City, the son of Walter Thomas Miller, a stockbroker and a member of the New York cotton exchange, and Christiana Wylie. He was educated in private and public schools in New York. Soon after the United States declared war with Spain, Miller enlisted in the Ninth New York Volunteers, serving in the army from May to November 1898. After his military service he began working in his father’s brokerage. In 1900 he married Sarah Whipple Simmons; they had no children. In 1904 he decided to prepare himself for a legal career and entered the New York Law School, where he earned an LL.B. in 1910 and an LL.M. the next year. Admitted to the New York bar, he began the general practice of law....
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Minor, Benjamin Blake (1818-1905), editor, educator, and lawyer
C. E. Lindgren
Minor, Benjamin Blake (21 October 1818–01 August 1905), editor, educator, and lawyer, was born in Tappahannock, Essex County, Virginia, the son of Dr. Hubbard Taylor Minor, a physician, and Jane Blake. Both parents were from prominent Virginia planting families. In 1835 Minor enrolled at the University of Virginia, an institution he much preferred to Bristol College, a small mechanical school near Philadelphia where he had earlier studied. For the next three school terms Minor pursued his studies there, eventually receiving several diplomas in various schools. In 1836 Charles Bonnycastle, one of Minor’s professors, offered him a principalship at a Baton Rouge academy. Although Minor did not accept the offer, he was persuaded to lodge with Professor Bonnycastle and tutor his children....
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Reed, Henry Hope (1808-1854), lawyer, educator, and litterateur
Guy R. Woodall
Reed, Henry Hope (11 July 1808–27 September 1854), lawyer, educator, and litterateur, was born in Philadelphia, the son of Joseph Reed and Maria Ellis Watmough. His father was a lawyer, and his brother, William Bradford Reed, was to become a distinguished lawyer, politician, and statesman. In 1823, at age fifteen, Henry Reed entered the sophomore class at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated with honors in 1825 and was the Latin salutatorian. He studied law with his uncle ...
