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2026-09-17T11:32:09+00:00 Zend_Feed_Writer https://amhersthistoric.org/ Amherst Historic https://amhersthistoric.org 2014-12-06T04:25:05+00:00 2021-04-22T18:28:34+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/11 Christine Bjorge (UMass Public History Program) and edited by Janet Marquardt (Amherst Historical Commission) “Children must early learn the the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving.”  -Charles Eastman "A gifted, lovable, self-reliant people stood at the crisis of their fate...The hour had struck for a swift transition to another pattern of life altogether, before their self-respect had been undermined and their courage exhausted. Education was the master-key."

 -Elaine Goodale Eastman Life
 Ohiyesa Charles (1858-1939) and Elaine Goodale (1863-1953) Eastman lived with their six children in this house from 1911 to 1919, the period in which Charles published nine of his eleven books and Elaine published three of her seven books. Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman was born on a Santee Sioux reservation in Redwood Falls, MN in 1858. His father was Sioux and his mother was multiracial. The Eastman family fled to Canada as refugees after the Sioux Indian Uprising of 1862. Eastman earned his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1887 and his M.D. from Boston University in 1890. Once Eastman embraced his ethnicity, he adopted the name Ohiyesa, which means “The Winner” in Sioux. In 1890, Eastman went to work as a physician in the Pine Ridge Agency where he provided care for victims of the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. There, he met Elaine Goodale, a social worker and poet, who was Superintendent of Indian Education for the Two Dakotas. Elaine Goodale was born October 9, 1863 to a sophisticated and progressive New England farm family in Mount Washington, Massachusetts where social reformer friends were regular visitors. She and her sister, Dora, wrote poetry that was published while they were still young. Elaine graduated from Smith College in 1884 and went to teach at a boarding school for Native American children in Virginia until 1886 when she moved to White River Camp, a Sioux reservation, in the Dakota Territories to set up a model day school. Six years later she was made Indian Education Supervisor in the Dakotas under the government Bureau of Indian Affairs and used the position to try lobby for education on the reservations rather than separating Native American families by sending their children to distant boarding schools. She met Eastman while helping care for victims of the Wounded Knee Massacre. One daughter, Irene, died in the 1918 flu epidemic. The Eastman-Goodale marriage ended in separation in 1921. Though the partnership did not last, historian Ruth Ann Alexander has suggested that it proved an apt metaphor for the increasingly uneasy alliance between whites and Native Americans. Key Works
 Eastman’s books focus on the history, legends, myths, traditions, values, and religious beliefs of the Sioux people. In 1893, Eastman had his first articles published in St. Nicolas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks. Eastman wrote eleven books, these included his two autobiographies: Indian Boyhood (1902) and From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the Autobiography of an Indian (1916) as well as three books about Sioux life: Red Hunters and the Animal People (1904), Old Indian Days (1907), and Wigwam Evenings: Sioux Folk Tales Retold (1909). In 1910, Eastman got deeply involved in the Boy Scouts of America and became a contributing writer for the organization’s magazine, Boy’s Life. Eastman’s work is notable for its unapologetic commitment to social justice for Native Americans. Goodale produced her own poetry, novels and memoirs while collaborating with and playing a major editorial role to Eastman. She wrote until near the end of her long life, publishing more poems, novels, book reviews, articles, and a 1935 biography of Richard Henry Pratt, the founder of the Carlisle Indian School. In 1945, she wrote an essay about the Ghost Dance, a Native American religious movement promising peace and an end to white westward expansion. Her early 1891 memoir, Sister to the Sioux, documented her travels in Sioux territory and her own assimilation to their way of life even while expressing a belief that they must adapt to the ways of white settlers or face extinction. It was only by witnessing the massacre at Wounded Knee that she began to lose faith in this ideal. Legacy
 People remember Eastman as a staunch advocate of Native American civil rights. He earned his living lecturing and writing about Native American life, history, and social justice. In addition, Eastman served as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. for the Santee Sioux from 1897 to 1900.  Goodale both embraced the Sioux people and their way while retaining her belief in the superiority of her own New England background. She played a key diplomatic role in her day negotiating between these two worlds and striving for what she thought would be best for the future of Native Americans.  House
 Eastman and Goodale nicknamed their house "Lodestone" (magnet). Elaine's father purchased the original house, a cottage, sometime between 1887 and 1891. A fire destroyed that cottage in 1897 and it took the Goodale family six years to build a new house, which still stands on the site today. Directions It is recommended to drive to the final house on the tour because it is 5.5 miles to the south. The next stop is Robert Francis' house, which is located at 170 Market Hil Rd. Drive west on Route 9 for 2 miles to S. East Street. Turn right on S. East Street for 2 miles until it becomes Henry Street and continue for 1 more mile to Market Hill Road. Turn right for .4 miles to 170 Market Hill Road. Additional Resources To learn more about Charles A. Eastman, check out http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/authors/Charles-Eastman.aspx and http://nativeamericanwriters.com/eastman.html For more (including 3 images), view the original article. 2014-12-06T04:18:13+00:00 2021-04-22T18:28:04+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/10 Christine Bjorge (UMass Public History Program), edited by Janet Marquardt (Amherst Historical Commission) "Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame; Each to his passion; what's in a name?"
-Helen Hunt Jackson

   Life 
 Helen Hunt Jackson was born Helen Maria Fiske on October 14, 1830 here in Amherst. She spent her childhood in town and was a girlhood friend of Emily Dickinson. Helen’s father, Nathan Fiske, served as a professor of Latin and Greek at Amherst College and the family home was loving and intellectually nurturing. However, both of Hunt Jackson's parents died of tuberculosis when she was in her mid-teens. A mixture of happiness and tragedy defined her early adulthood as well. In 1852, Jackson married Edward Hunt, an engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers, with whom she had two sons. By 1865, Helen had lost her husband and both of her sons to accident and illnesses. Following these sad experiences, she began to pursue literary ambitions. She moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado in the early 1870s, at the advice of her physician who recommended it for her health. In 1874, she married William Sharpless Jackson, a railroad administrator from Colorado. After attending a lecture in 1897 about the forced removal of Native Americans from their lands, Hunt Jackson became committed to calling attention to their plight through her writing. Working for reforms on behalf of the Ponca and White River Ute tribes of Colorado, she also documented the treaties that the U.S. government had broken with these tribes as well as the Cherokees, Delawares, Cheyennes, Nez Perces, Sioux, and Winnebagoes. After a successful writing career, Hunt Jackson died of cancer in 1885 in San Francisco. She is buried in Colorado Springs.   Key Works
  Helen Hunt Jackson’s early literary works focused on travel and domesticity. However, her mature contributions included several non-fiction accounts based on research she conducted about the treatment that Native Americans endured in the wake of American westward expansion. Her most notable work about of this topic was A Century of Dishonor, written in 1881 and distributed to every member of Congress in opposition to the Dawes Act. In 1884, Hunt Jackson wrote one of the most iconic works of her career, a novel entitled Ramona, which effectively conveyed the reality of Native American exploitation and suffering in California through a fictional story.    Legacy
  Although she authored stories and books belonging to several genres, Helen Hunt Jackson’s literary legacy is most defined by her writings that champion social justice for Native Americans, calling European settlers' treatment of them a "national shame." In Extraordinary Women of the Rocky Mountain West, Katherine Scott Sturdevant argues that Hunt Jackson was the Harriet Beecher Stowe of the Native American cause. The majority of Jackson’s personal and literary papers are held in the archives at Colorado College.   House
  Helen Hunt Jackson’s childhood home was built in 1830, the year of her birth. Local architect Warren S. Howland designed the house, which was constructed in the Greek Revival Style. In the early 1840s, Hunt Jackson left her family homestead and went away to Pittsfield Academy, a boarding school in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1921, owner Robert P. Utter sold this childhood home to Amherst College. In 1999, a private citizen purchased the house. However, it became property of Amherst College again in 2009 and today it remains a part of the academic institution.   Directions to Next Stop It is recommended to drive to the next house because it is 3.5 miles away. The next stop is Charles Eastman's House located at 850 Belchertown Road. Drive north on So. Pleasant Street for .5 miles to Colege Avenue/MA Route 9. Turn east on Route 9, which will become Belchertown Road, for 3 miles to 850 Belchertown Road. Additional ResourcesTo learn more about Helen Hunt Jackson, check out: http://www2.coloradocollege.edu/library/specialcollections/Manuscript/HHJ.html and http://www.socalhistory.org/biographies/helen-hunt-jackson.html For more (including 4 images), view the original article. 2014-12-06T04:07:41+00:00 2021-05-10T16:49:09+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/9 Christine Bjorge (UMass Public History Program) and edited by Janet Marquardt (Amherst Historical Commission) "Having lived here the years that are my best,I call it home. I am content to stay. I have no bird's desire to fly away. I envy neither north, east, south, nor west."Robert Francis   LifeRobert Churchill Francis was an American poet and essayist, born in Upland, Pennsylvania on August 2, 1901. Francis attended Harvard College where he received his Bachelor’s Degree in literature in 1923. After receiving his degree and teaching English in the prep school of the American University in Beirut, Lebanon, he returned to Harvard in 1923 to study for a Master’s Degree in Education. In 1926 he moved to Amherst to teach English at Amherst High School. After serving in the Army in 1944, he started working for a short time at Mount Holyoke College, but then shifted his focus entirely to writing. In the summer of 1940, Francis bought a half-acre of land on Market Hill Road where he built the house that currently stands on the site. During his time in Amherst, he became an associate of Robert Frost as well as a friend of many other writers. His writing was recognized, winning him the Rome Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the position of Phi Beta Kappa poet for both Tufts and Harvard universities. Robert Francis died in Amherst in July 1987.  Key WorksFrancis published his first book of poems, Stand With Me Here, in 1936 and his second volume, Valhalla and Other Poems, in 1938. His volumes of poetry are represented in Collected Poems, 1936-1976. In addition to contributing to a regular column, “Country Comment,” to Forum Magazine, among other things that Francis published are the novel We Fly Away in 1948, more volumes of poems including Face Against the Glass from 1950, an autobiography entitled The Trouble with Francis in 1971, and a final volume of poetry called Late Fire, Late Snow. Francis’ poems vary widely in subjects and themes, however there is a unifying gentle tone to all of his work. LegacyRobert Frost, one of Francis’ poetic mentors, said that Francis was “of all the great neglected poets, the greatest.” Francis received numerous awards including the Shelly Memorial Award and the Golden Rose of the New England Poetry Club. In Amherst, he was regularly called upon to give readings of his work at the Jones Library and on several occasions, he was featured on “Poems to a Listener,” a program on the Five College radio station, WFCR. Nationally, the Academy of American Poets recognized Francis with its award for “distinguished poetic achievement” in April 1984. The Juniper Prize in Poetry, established by the UMass Press in 1975, is named in honor of Francis’ North Amherst home. HouseFrancis built his small house on Market Hill Road in 1940 and called it “Fort Juniper” in honor of the infallibility of the common pasture juniper. The entire cost of his 20’ by 22’ house was $1,500 and every tiny detail from the construction ledger he kept is recorded in his autobiography. Today the Robert Francis Trust offers the house as residence to poets and writers seeking a quiet place to concentrate on their work. The house is built of hurricane pine, including the framework, floors and inner walls, except for the ceiling, which is of plywood. Additional Resources To learn more about Robert Francis check out: http://digitalamherst.org/items/browse/tag/Robert+Francis and http://library.umass.edu/spcoll/umarmot/?s=robert+francis   Congratulations! You have completed the Amherst Writers Walk tour. For more (including 7 images), view the original article. 2014-12-06T04:01:41+00:00 2021-04-22T18:35:02+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/8 Andrew Grim (UMass Public History Program) and edited by Janet Marquardt (Amherst Historical Commission) "And half the fun of nearly everything, you know, is thinking about it beforehand, or afterward" - Howard Garis, Uncle Wiggily's Story Book, 1921    Life Howard Roger Garis was born on April 25, 1873 in Binghamton, New York. Howard's family moved to Syracuse, New York when he was a young child and later relocated to Newark, New Jersey when Howard was in his teens. Lilian McNamara was born in 1872 in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of Irish immigrants. Lilian was an avid writer from a young age and wrote her own "Woman's Page" for a city paper as a teenager. Howard and Lilian Garis got their start in the writing business as journalists. In 1896, Howard was hired as a reporter for a prominent New Jersey newspaper, The Newark Evening News. Lilian, a suffragette and one of New Jersey's first female journalists, was working as a reporter for the News when Howard joined the staff. The couple wed four years later, in 1900. In 1951, they left their home in East Orange, New Jersey and relocated to Amherst, Massachusetts. During his time in Amherst, Howard became friends with fellow writer and Amherst resident Robert Frost, who often visited the Garis home. Lilian and Howard remained in Amherst until their deaths, in 1954 and 1962 respectively.    Literature Howard and Lilian wrote numerous book series over the years. Among the most popular series they penned were The Bobbsey Twins, The Motor Boys, The Racer Boys, The Jack Rangers, Tom Swift, The Motor Girls, Dorothy Dale, The Outdoor Girls, and Baseball Joe. Lilian wrote several popular children's books including the Judy Jordan, Nancy Brandon, Connie Loring, Melody Lane and Barbara Hale series. However, it was the remarkable success of Howard’s creation, Uncle Wiggily, which enabled the Garises to earn a substantial living. In total, Howard published over 15,000 Uncle Wiggily stories between 1910 and 1962. Uncle Wiggily was extremely popular with generations of children who were captivated by the title character, Uncle Wiggily Longears, an elderly, rheumatic rabbit, habitually donned in a top hat. The vast appeal of the Uncle Wiggily stories was due in part to the sense of optimism and adventure they conveyed. They reflected an upbeat love of life and a "can-do" attitude that defined Howard Garis' personal worldview. As of the mid-1960s, Uncle Wiggily books had sold over 18 million copies.    Legacy Over the course of their lifetimes, Howard and Lilian Garis wrote hundreds of children's books, influencing countless young people who internalized the uplifting and empowering messages conveyed by the stories. Among those whom the Garises’ books influenced was Stephen Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Inc., who has cited the title character of the Tom Swift series as a role model. While the impact of Howard and Lilian's vast body of work is considerable, it is safe to say that the Uncle Wiggily stories constitute the most iconic contribution the Garises made to children's literature. Today, Uncle Wiggily books continue to be published in print form and have also appeared as e-books and in Kindle editions to entertain new generations of children.    House In 1948, Howard and Lilian Garis' son moved to Amherst with his wife Mabel and their three children. The family purchased a home at 97 Spring Street that was called "The Dell." Three years later, Howard and Lilian left their home in East Orange, NJ and moved in with their son's family in Amherst. Built in 1907, the Dell was designed in the Craftsman and Colonial Revival Styles and is notable for its columns, arched entry, and exceptional size. Perhaps just as notable as the Dell itself is the history of the grounds on which the house sits. The land was once owned by Emily Dickinson’s brother, Austin, who landscaped the grounds of the Dell, planting a variety of trees and flowers on the property. In 1958, Roger and Mabel Garis sold the Dell to Amherst College and moved the family to a more modest house on Amity Street. Lilian Garis had passed away in 1954, but Howard spent the final years of his life in the family's Amity Street home. Today the Dell at 97 Spring Street houses the Five College Offices.   Directions to Next Stop Walk east on Spring Street for .02 miles to corner of Boltwood Avenue.  For more (including 4 images), view the original article. 2014-12-06T03:58:55+00:00 2021-04-22T18:31:58+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/7 Andrew Grim (UMass Public History Program); Janet Marquardt and Jane Wald (Amherst Historical Commission) “All uncleanness seems washed clean in its lonely stretches; the life-giving sun and ardent air must still bring singular joy, the eager morning breeze, the opalescent distance, the plaintive evening sky all will continue to tell an exquisite if inarticulate story. That Tripoli will remain, whatever the Powers may decree.” - Mabel Loomis Todd, Tripoli the Mysterious    Life Mabel Loomis was born on November 10, 1856 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She spent much of her childhood writing, painting, and practicing voice and piano. In 1877, while living in Washington D.C., she met David Peck Todd. They married on March 5, 1879 and moved to Amherst in 1881 for David to take up a position at Amherst College teaching astronomy. There Mabel made the acquaintance of Austin Dickinson, Emily Dickinson's brother, and his wife Susan, and became a frequent guest at their home, the Evergreens. Todd often played the piano and sang for Emily Dickinson and her mother in their home next to the Evergreens. Besides Todd's long epistolary  friendship with Emily, she also had a thirteen-year extra-marital affair with Austin. Two years after Emily Dickinson's death in 1886, her sister, Lavinia, brought Todd a portion of Emily's poetry and asked her to help publish them. Todd spent the next nine years organizing, transcribing, and editing hundreds of the poems. Her work was collected in three volumes, published in 1890, 1891 and 1896. Todd also collected Emily Dickinson's many letters to various correspondents in a two-volume set entitled Letters of Emily Dickinson, published in 1894.    Literature In addition to editing and publishing several volumes of Emily Dickinson's poetry and letters, Todd produced some of her own literary work as well. In particular, she wrote several books detailing her travels with her husband. Total Eclipses of the Sun (1894) was based on the Todds' astronomical explorations, including trips to Japan to see the total eclipse of the sun. Corona and Coronet (1898) also dealt with her travels in Japan, while Tripoli the Mysterious (1912) reflected her time in Tripoli, Libya. She also published a short novel, Footprints, in 1883 and a book of poems, A Cycle of Sunsets, in 1910.    Legacy Mary Loomis Todd is best remembered as being the first collector and editor of the works of Emily Dickinson but she was also fundamental in establishing the Amherst Historical Society, the Amherst Woman's Club, and the Amherst chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Even following her death in 1932, Todd influenced the perceptions and availability of Emily Dickinson's poetry as her daughter, Millicent, continued to publish more of Emily Dickinson's poetry in 1945. If it were not for Todd's diligent work as a curator and editor of Emily Dickinson's poetry, the world may never have heard of the reclusive poet.    House  Mary Loomis Todd's home in Amherst is located at 90 Spring Street, although it was originally built for the Todds by Austin Dickinson in 1886 at 97 Spring Street and later moved. It was first Amherst house constructed in the Queen Anne architectural style. In 1898 there was a court trial between Lavinia Dickinson and the Todd couple, contesting Austin's intended gift to them of an additional strip of land. The Todds subsequently sold their home and moved to a different house on Snell Street. George B. Churchill bought the Todd home when he accepted a job to teach at Amherst College in 1898 and later shifted "The Dell" across to this site in 1907 in order to build a new house at 90 Spring Street (see house #8 on this tour).   Directions to Next Stop Cross east on Spring Street for 0.01 miles to 97 Spring Street. For more, view the original article. 2014-12-06T03:53:59+00:00 2021-07-21T19:13:30+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/6 Andrew Grim (UMass Public History); Laura Lovett and Janet Marquardt (Amherst Historical Commission) “A slavish concern for the composition of words is the sign of a bankrupt intellect. Be gone, odious wasp! You smell of decayed syllables.” - Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth  Life  Juster was born on June 2, 1929 in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his Bachelor's in Architecture in 1952. After doing graduate work at the University of Liverpool as a Fulbright scholar, Juster went on to serve in the United States Naval Reserve Civil Engineer Corps 1954-57, helping to build airfields in Morocco and Newfoundland among other duties. Juster married Jeanne Ray, a graphic designer, on August 15, 1964 and they had one child, Emily. In addition to writing, Juster was an architect in New York City with Juster and Gugliotta (1960-68) and Juster-Pope-Frazier Associates in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts from 1969 until his retirement. He began teaching architecture at Hampshire College in 1970 and became an Emeritus Professor of Design in 1992. He died in Northampton MA on March 8, 2021. Literature Norton Juster published several books, both fiction and non-fiction. His most well-known work is The Phantom Tollbooth. The book, first published in 1961, tells the adventures of Milo, a young boy who is transported to a land called the Kingdom of Wisdom by a magical tollbooth. In 1963 he published The Dot and The Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics, which tells the tale of two star-crossed lovers--a dot and a line. His subsequent children's books include, Stark Naked: A Paranomastic Odyssey (1969), Otter Nonsense (1994), As Silly As Knees, As Busy As Bees: An Astounding Assortment of Similes (1998), The Hello Goodbye Window (2005), Sourpuss and Sweetie Pie (2008), The Odious Ogre (2010), and most recently Neville (2011). Juster also published two works of non-fiction -- So Sweet to Labor: Rural Women in America, 1865-1895 (1979) and A Woman's Place: Yesterday's Women in Rural America (1996).  Legacy Norton Juster's most famous work, The Phantom Tollbooth, has proven to be a timeless work of fiction, after making The New York Times list of best-selling books for children in 1962. In 1966 The New York Times included it on its list of the fifty best children's book of the previous five years. The Dot and The Line was made into an animated short film by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in 1965. In 1970, MGM adapted The Phantom Tollbooth into a full-length animated feature. It was also performed as an opera for Opera Delaware in 1995. Juster won numerous awards for his literary work including a Ford Foundation grant in 1960-1961, the National Academy of Arts and Sciences Award for Outstanding Achievement in 1968-1969, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1970-1971, and the George G. Stone Center for Children's Books Seventh Recognition of Merit in 1971.  House  The Justers' first home in Amherst was located on 259 Lincoln Avenue, where they lived from 1982-2007 and the eponymous "Hello Goodbye Window" was located in the kitchen. Directions to Next Stop Walk south on Lincoln Avenue for .03 miles to Amity Street. Turn left and walk .02 miles until the intersection with Pleasant Street. Continue directly across Pleasant Street on to Main Street for 400 feet. For more (including 2 images), view the original article. 2014-12-06T03:40:24+00:00 2021-04-22T18:26:07+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/5 Katherine Garland (UMass Public History) and edited by Janet Marquardt (Amherst Historical Commission) "We are a race of artists. What are we doing about it?" – Shirley Graham Du Bois, "Towards an American Theatre," Arts Quarterly, Oct–Dec 1937 Life  Although some may associate Shirley Graham Du Bois with her husband, the noted civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois, she made her own profound legacy. Born on November 11, 1896 in Indianapolis, Shirley Graham learned about civil rights activism early on from her father, but her career did not initially focus on activism. After a brief marriage to Shadrack T. McCann, who died a few years into their marriage, Graham studied music at Howard University and Oberlin College. During this time, she produced an opera and wrote plays, which led to her to become the director of the African American division of the Chicago Unit of the Federal Theatre Project in 1936. Graham did not forget her early civil rights ideals, though, and joined the New York branch of the NAACP in the 1940s where she met W. E. B. Du Bois. The couple married in 1951 after the death of his first wife. Together, they joined the Communist Party and moved to Ghana in 1961. After her husband’s death in 1963, Graham DuBois traveled around the world; banned from the United States for a time due to her far-left beliefs. Graham Du Bois donated her husband’s papers to the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in exchange for $150,000 and served there as a visiting lecturer for a year. The UMass library and Department of Afro-American Studies are both named for W. E. B. Du Bois. Graham Du Bois moved to China in 1976 and died of cancer a year later.  Literary Legacy Shirley Graham Du Bois' writing career spanned from 1932 to 1975 and included six plays and fourteen books. She won several prestigious awards and fellowships including the Rosenwald Fellowship in 1939, Julius Messner Award in 1946, Aisfiled-Wolf Award in 1949, Guggenheim Fellowship and National Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1950. Beginning in 1944, Graham Du Bois began to write biographies of prominent African- and Native- Americans for young adults, including figures such as George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass, Phyllis Wheatley, Pocahontas, and Booker T. Washington. She hoped that her sympathetic portraits would uplift and inspire American youth.  House  While teaching at Amherst in the 1970s, Graham Du Bois lived at The Boltwood Inn (then called The Amherst Inn, later The Lord Jeffery Inn). This hotel, near the grounds of the Amherst Commons, has been in operation since 1926 and is owned and operated by an affiliate of Amherst College. Directions to Next Stop Walk South .01 miles on Boltwood Avenue to College Street. Turn west for 250 feet until Pleasant Street. Walk south .02 miles to 249 S. Pleasant Street. Additional Resources To learn more about Shirley Graham Du Bois, check out the UMass Library's website: http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/duboisopedia/doku.php?id=about:du_bois_shirley_graham  To do your own research on Shirley Graham Du Bois, check out her papers at the Harvard University Library: http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00211 For more (including 4 images), view the original article. 2014-12-06T03:31:07+00:00 2021-04-22T18:33:04+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/4 Katherine Garland (UMass Public History Program) and edited by Janet Marquardt (Amherst Historical Commission) "Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, still exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors." - Noah Webster describing the need for standardized spellings in his Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings Life  Noah Webster was born in West Hartford, Connecticut on October 16, 1758 where he lived until leaving to study at Yale University. After graduation in 1779, Webster taught at schools around Connecticut, studied law, and married Rebecca Greenleaf. He went on to work as a lawyer in Hartford before launching into his literary career by founding two newspapers in New York. In 1783, Webster published The Grammatical Institute of the English Language, his first book, which was used by generations of school children as an introduction to the proper way to pronounce, spell, and read the English language. Thanks to the book's success, Webster went on a nation-wide lecture tour from 1785-1786, encouraging the American public to change its dialect to signify America's newfound independence from Great Britain. During this time, he rubbed shoulders with political leaders like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, working with the Constitutional Convention and the new postal service. In 1812, Noah and Rebecca Webster moved to Amherst where they farmed while Webster published books and helped found Amherst College. After a decade, the Webster family moved back to New Haven, where Webster died in 1843.  Literature  Webster's greatest literary accomplishment was the publication of An American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. This text added 5000 new words to American English, Americanized the spelling of certain words to differentiate from British English, and eliminated words that were not useful for Americans. When not working on his dictionary, Webster published textbooks, edited magazines, and corresponded with contemporaries about the politics of the day, debating topics such as copyright law, the strength of the federal government, universal education, and the abolition of slavery.  Legacy  Outside of his contributions to lexicography, Webster is best known in Amherst for his commitment to local education. He helped to found Amherst College and served on the board of trustees. Webster also helped to found a school at the First Congregational Church to teach young children. In 1897, the community honored Webster's commitment to local education with a memorial statue that still stands on the Amherst College campus.  House  Webster owned a home where the Lincoln Building is located today. He and his family lived here from 1812-1822 with "the best garden in town." After the Webster family left Amherst, their home was converted into a hotel that was destroyed by fire in 1838. Although a new hotel was built on the location, it was demolished in 1909 to make way for the current building. Directions to Next Stop Continue east on Main Street for .02 miles to 280 Main Street. Additional Resources To learn more about Noah Webster, check out the West Hartford museum dedicate to his life: https://www.noahwebsterhouse.org/  To do your own research on Noah Webster and his life in Amherst, check out the Webster Family papers at the Amherst College library: http://asteria.fivecolleges.edu/findaids/amherst/ma74.html For more (including 5 images), view the original article. 2014-12-06T03:15:15+00:00 2021-04-22T18:33:24+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/3 Gregg Mitchell (UMass Public History Program) and edited by Janet Marquardt (Amherst Historical Commission) "Ideas came with explosive immediacy, like an instant birth. Human thought is like a monstrous pendulum; it keeps swinging from one extreme to the other." - Eugene Field Life-Eugene FieldEugene Field was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 2 or 3, 1850 to Roswell Martin Field and Frances Reed, who were both natives of Vermont. His father served as lawyer for Dred Scott in the famous "Dred Scott Decision" of 1857 which stated that African Americans, by virtue of their race, would not be allowed citizenship in the United States. After the death of his mother in 1856, both Eugene and his older brother, Roswell, were sent to live with their aunt, Mary Field French, in Amherst. Field attended several colleges, including Williams College in Williamstown, MA, Knox College in Galesburg, IL, and ultimately the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO. Despite attending these three institutions of higher learning, Field never earned a college degree. Instead, Field decided in the fall of 1872 to take his inheritance and set out with a friend to tour Europe. He returned in 1873 with most of his money spent. He then married Julia Sutherland Comstock from St. Joseph, Missouri. They had a happy marriage that yielded eight children. Julia helped to bring order and organization to Field's business affairs. Field died October 4, 1885 in Chicago, Illinois. Literature Field is remembered for his literary whimsicality, his impish personality, and his ingenious, elaborate, and heartless practical jokes. For instance, in some of his newspaper columns, Field wrote about his friends and enemies making them the center of imaginary anecdotes, or he would write poetry and attribute the work to a famous contemporary figure. "Wynken, Blynke, and Nod", one of his most famous poems was written in 1888 and published in the weekly journal America. This particular lullaby has been immortalized in marble and bronze statues, a painting, and a 1938 Disney animated short film. Field worked as a journalist at the St. Joseph Gazette, the St. Louis Journal, the Kansas City Times, and the Denver Tribune in order to support his family. In 1883 Field landed a job at the Morning News (renamed The Chicago News Record in 1892). Field worked here for the rest of his life and wrote his column called "Sharps and Flats," in which he first published much of his literary work. Field also began work on a fictional autobiography, The Love Affairs of A Bibliomaniac. Field ultimately published thirteen books during his lifetime. Some of Field's books on poetry included A Little Book of Western Verse (1889), Second Book of Verse (1892), and Love Songs of Childhood (1894). Legacy Field is known as America’s “Poet of Childhood” and “The Children’s Poet” for his contribution to children’s poetry. Field was a fan of Horace, the Roman lyric poet, satirist, and literary critic whose brevity and humor inspired Field’s wit and literary aesthetic.  HouseField lived with his aunt in her home at 219 Amity Street until he went off to college. The house itself was built in 1839 by Robert Cutler. The architectural design style is mixed. The façade is Greek Revival while the sides represent a traditional New England Colonial style. "No one knows anything about a strike until he has seen it break down into its component parts of human beings." - Mary Heaton Vorse Life-Mary Heaton Vorse Mary Heaton Vorse was born on October 9, 1874 in New York City to Hiram Heaton, a retired innkeeper, and Ellen Cordelia Blackman. She received an education at several private schools and academies but a large part of her education also came from her mother, who tutored her while they traveled. Her mother introduced her to Keenan's account of conditions in the Russian penal colonies which piqued her interest in politics. She began reading Russian literature, while anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s 1899 "Fields, Factories and Workshops" particularly influenced her later. The family spent their summers in Amherst and Vorse wrote about what her life was like here. Most of her winters were spent in New York or Europe. She originally wanted to be an artist, studying in Paris and New York City, but when she was eighteen Vorse joined the staff of the Criterion which was a Manhattan based journal similar to today's The New Yorker. In her position there, she wrote articles, provided illustrations, and composed reviews on concerts, plays and exhibitions. In 1898, she married Albert White Vorse, who was a newspaperman and writer who helped her realize her love of writing. They had three children and three grandchildren. Vorse loved her home life and regretted that she was not able to spend more time there. She passed away on June 14, 1966 in Provincetown, MA. Literature Vorse’s work in the Passaic and Gastonia strikes inspired her to write Passaic, 1926 and Strike-A Novel of Gastonia, 1930. Labor’s New Millions, addressed the rise of the Committee for Industrial Organization. Her other works included Autobiography of an Elderly Woman (1911), The Prestons (1918), Growing Up (1920), Wreckage: A Play in One Act (1924), Gastonia (1929), and Labor's New Millions (1938). Most were directly related to her passion for supporting organized labor. Legacy Vorse had an "open house" and invited several literary greats including Eugene O'Neill, Wilbur Daniel Steel, and Lewis Sinclair, among others, to visit her. Vorse’s role in the organized labor movement defines her legacy. In 1912, Harper's Weekly sent Vorse to Lawrence, MA to cover a story on the textile strike. She joined the likes of some notable journalists including Lincoln Steffens, William Allen White, Richard Washburn Child, Ray Stannard Baker, and Fremont Older. Some of these individuals became her lifelong friends. Her coverage of the textile striker cost Harper's Weekly one of their largest advertisers, which became a joke with her editor, Thomas Wells. Whenever she would go off to cover a labor story, he told her to not lose too many advertisers. In the years following, Vorse and her husband toured Europe and during the period 1918-1919 she served as a war correspondent for Century and McClure's as well as a member of the Balkan Commission. She wrote about conditions of some of the impoverished areas while working with the American Relief Association. After returning to the United States, Vorse continued to battle for labor rights. In 1926, Vorse and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn traveled to a labor strike in Passaic, NJ where photographers had cameras smashed and some reporters were beaten. Three years after that, she went on to Gastonia, NC and addressed the National Textile Workers Union. At this event shots were fired as she was walking toward the rally. A bullet grazed her, and a female textile worker was killed. House Mary Heaton Vorse's home in Amherst is located at 219 Amity Street and sits on one acre of land and was also home to Eugene Field (1856-1865). The home was originally built in 1836 by Robert Cutler, who was an established builder in Amherst, for Thomas Jones, a merchant and member of the General Court. The architectural style is Colonial with a Greek Revival pillared and roofed portico. The exterior is made of wood butt-edge and clapboards, which surround the house on all sides except the front, where the boards lie flat. A hurricane in 1938 destroyed the west porch of the home, and later owners constructed an east porch to match the entry portico; no other major alternations have taken place. Direction to Next Stop Walk east on Amity Street to Lincoln Avenue. Turn left and walk .04 miles to 259 Lincoln Avenue. Additional Resources To learn more about Eugene Field's life in general, visit: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/eugene-field To do your own research on Eugene Field, explore some of his works on Project Gutenberg’s website: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/f#a238 To learn more about Mary Heaton Vorse's life in general, visit: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAvorse.htm To do your own research on Mary Heaton Vorse, explore some of her works on Project Gutenberg’s website:  http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/v#a1683 For more (including 8 images), view the original article. 2014-12-06T03:08:15+00:00 2021-04-22T18:33:45+00:00 https://amhersthistoric.org/items/show/2 Katherine Garland (UMass Public History Program) and edited by Janet Marquardt (Amherst Historical Commission)<br /> "I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." - The Road Not Taken (1916) "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life — It goes on." - As quoted in The Harper Book of Quotations (1993) edited by Robert I. Fitzhenry Life  Although he lived in Amherst from 1916 to 1938, Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on March 26, 1874, and spent much of his childhood in eastern Massachusetts. He attended Dartmouth College in the fall of 1892 but stayed less a year before he left to marry his classmate Elinor Miriam White. During this time, he worked odd jobs while writing poetry in his spare time. Frost sold his first poem, "My Butterfly: An Elegy," to the New York Independent in 1894. After living in eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Great Britain, the Frost family moved to Amherst. Frost first traveled to Amherst in 1916 to lecture at Amherst College, and the family moved here shortly thereafter. He served as an English professor for Amherst College from 1926 until 1938, and the Simpson Lecturer in Literature, occasionally visiting Amherst to teach, until his death on January 29, 1963 following complications from surgery.  Literature  Frost stood at the crossroads of nineteenth-century American poetry and modernism, as his poetry incorporates nineteenth-century tendencies and traditions, and parallels the work of his twentieth-century contemporaries. Frost's poetry is difficult to categorize, as it contains elements of modernism and earlier poetic forms, incorporating pastoral imagery, introspection, and New England self-reliant ideas. The irony, ambiguity, skepticism, and honesty of Frost's work reflect his distinctly modern sensibility. Throughout his career, Frost earned four Pulitzer Prizes for literature for New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes (1924), Collected Poems (1931), A Further Range (1937), and A Witness Tree (1943). Frost's poetry became increasingly dark as his family suffered a number of tragedies 1930-1940, including the death of his wife, suicide of his son, and mental disorders that led to the institutionalization of his daughter.  Legacy Besides his four Pulitzer Prizes, Robert Frost was also the consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress 1958-1959. He received honorary degrees from Harvard University, Bates College, Oxford University, Cambridge University, and Dartmouth College (which awarded him two degrees). On his seventy-fifth birthday, the United States Senate passed a resolution in Frost's honor which stated, "His poems have helped to guide American thought and humor and wisdom, setting forth to our minds a reliable representation of ourselves and of all men." Locally, the Amherst College Library was named in Frost's honor, dedicated by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, a few months after Frost passed away.  House  Robert Frost lived at 43 Sunset Avenue from 1931 to 1938, when his wife Elinor died and he left Amherst, only returning to lecture at Amherst College for special events. This home was originally built in 1875 for the Massachusetts Agricultural College President, Henry Goodell, and it represents the Stick Style tradition with its relatively plain layout and accented trusses on the gables and decorative shingles.  Directions to Next StopWalk South on Sunset Avenue for 0.1 miles, turn left onto Amity Street and walk for 0.7 miles to 219 Amity Street Additional Resources To learn more about Robert Frost's life in general, visit: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/robert-frost  To do your own research on Robert Frost, check out the Jones Library's Robert Frost collection: http://www.joneslibrary.org/specialcollections/collections/frost/frost_print.html For more (including 4 images), view the original article.