John Greenleaf Whittier
Born	December 17, 1807 Haverhill, Massachusetts, United States
Died	September 7, 1892 Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, United States
Occupation	Writer

John Greenleaf Whittier (December 17, 1807 – September 7, 1892) was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Image File history File linksMetadata John_Greenleaf_Whittier. ... December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1807 (MDCCCVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar). ... Location in Essex County in Massachusetts Coordinates: , Country State County Essex County Settled 1640 Incorporated 1641 Government  - Type Mayor-council city  - Mayor James J. Fiorentini Area  - City  35. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... is the 250th day of the year (251st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Hampton Falls is a town located in Rockingham County, New Hampshire. ... For other uses, see New Hampshire (disambiguation). ... This article is about work. ... December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1807 (MDCCCVII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar). ... is the 250th day of the year (251st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, or Friends, is a religious community founded in England in the 17th century. ... Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene, by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1881). ... Slave redirects here. ...

Early Life and Work

John Greenleaf Whittier was born to John and Abigail (Hussey) at their rural homestead in Haverhill, Massachusetts on December 17, 1807. He grew up on the farm in a household with his parents, a brother and two sisters, a maternal aunt and paternal uncle, and a constant flow of visitors and hired hands for the farm. John himself was not cut out for hard farm labor and suffered from bad health and physical frailty his whole life. Although he received little formal education, he was an avid reader who studied his father’s six books on Quakerism until their teachings became the foundation of his ideology. Whittier was heavily influenced by the doctrines of his religion, particularly its stress on humanitarianism, compassion, and social responsibility. Location in Essex County in Massachusetts Coordinates: , Country State County Essex County Settled 1640 Incorporated 1641 Government  - Type Mayor-council city  - Mayor James J. Fiorentini Area  - City  35. ... For other uses, see Farm (disambiguation). ...

First introduced to poetry by a teacher, Whittier published his first poem in 1826 in William Lloyd Garrison’s Newburyport Free Press, a connection that began their devoted friendship. John then attended Haverhill Academy from 1827 to 1828 and completed a high school education in only two terms. After this, Garrison secured the young writer an editorial position for the American Manufacturer in Boston. Whittier became an out-spoken critic of President Andrew Jackson, and by 1830 was editor of the prominent New England Weekly Review in Hartford, Connecticut, the most influential Whig journal in New England. In 1833 he published The Song of the Vermonters, 1779, which he had anonymously inserted in The New England Magazine. The poem was erroneously attributed to Ethan Allen for nearly sixty years. Hartford redirects here. ... The United States Whig Party was a political party of the United States. ... This article is about the region in the United States of America. ... For other uses, see Ethan Allen (disambiguation). ...

Abolitionist Activity

During the 1830s, Whittier became interested in politics, but after losing a Congressional election in 1832, he suffered a nervous breakdown and returned home at age twenty-five. The year 1833 was a turning point for Whittier; he resurrected his correspondence with Garrison, and the passionate abolitionist began to encourage the young Quaker to join his cause.

In June of 1833, Whittier published the antislavery pamphlet Justice and Expediency, and from there dedicated the next twenty years of his life to the abolitionist cause. The controversial pamphlet destroyed all of his political hopes—as his demand for immediate emancipation alienated both northern businessmen and southern slaveholders—but it also sealed his commitment to a cause that he deemed morally correct and socially necessary. He was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society and signed the Anti-Slavery Declaration of 1833, which he often considered the most significant action of his life. The American Anti-Slavery Society (1833-1870) was founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. ...

Whittier’s political skill made him useful as a lobbyist, and his willingness to badger anti-slavery congressional leaders into joining the abolitionist cause was invaluable. From 1835 to 1838, he traveled widely in the North, attending conventions, securing votes, speaking to the public, and lobbying politicians. As he did so, Whittier received his fair share of violent responses, being several times mobbed, stoned, and run out of town. In 1838 he became editor of The Pennsylvanian Freeman, one of the leading antislavery papers in the North. He also continued to write poetry, and not surprisingly, nearly all of his poems dealt with the problem of slavery.

By the end of the 1830s, the unity of the abolitionist movement had begun to fracture. Whittier stuck to his belief that moral action apart from political effort was futile. He knew that success required legislative change, not merely moral suasion. This opinion alone engendered a bitter split from Garrison, and Whittier went on to become a founding member of the Liberty Party in 1840. Liberty Party was a political party in the United States during the mid-19th century. ...

Around this time, the stresses of editorial duties, worsening health, and dangerous mob violence caused him to have a physical breakdown. Whittier went home to Amesbury, and remained there for the rest of his life, ending his active participation in abolition. Even so, he continued to believe that the best way to gain abolitionist support was to broaden the Liberty Party’s political appeal, and Whittier persisted in advocating the addition of other issues to their platform. He eventually participated in the evolution of the Liberty Party into the Free Soil Party, and some say his greatest political feat was convincing Charles Sumner to run on the Free-Soil ticket for the U.S. Senate in 1850. The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. ... For other persons named Charles Sumner, see Charles Sumner (disambiguation). ...

As of 1848, Whittier was editor of The National Era, one of the most influential abolitionist newspapers in the North. For the next ten years it featured the best of his writing, both as prose and poetry. Being confined to his home and away from the action offered Whittier a chance to write better abolitionist poetry; he was even poet laureate for his party. Whittier’s poems often used slavery to symbolize all kinds of oppression (physical, spiritual, economic), and his poems stirred up popular response because they appealed to feelings rather than logic.

Whittier produced two collections of antislavery poetry: Poems Written during the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States, between 1830 and 1838 and Voices of Freedom (1846). The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 ended both slavery and his public cause, so Whittier turned to other forms of poetry for the remainder of his life.

Whittier died of a stroke on September 7, 1892 in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. He is buried in Amesbury, Massachusetts.^{[citation needed]} Hampton Falls is a town located in Rockingham County, New Hampshire. ... The Town of Amesbury is a city[1] in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. ...

Poetry

His first two published books were Legends of New England (1831) and the poem Moll Pitcher (1832). In 1833 he published The Song of the Vermonters, 1779, which he had anonymously inserted in The New England Magazine. The poem was erroneously attributed to Ethan Allen for nearly sixty years. In 1838, a mob burned Whittier out of his offices in the antislavery center of Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia.^[1] For other uses, see Ethan Allen (disambiguation). ... Pennsylvania Hall may be: Pennsylvania Hall (Philadelphia) Pennsylvania Hall (Gettysburg) Pennsylvania Hall (Pittsburgh) Category: ... For other uses, see Philadelphia (disambiguation) and Philly. ...

Highly regarded in his lifetime and for a period thereafter, he is now largely remembered for his patriotic poem Barbara Frietchie and for a number of poems turned into hymns. Although Victorian in style, his hymns exhibit sentimentality, imagination and universalism which differ from other 19th century hymns^{[citation needed]}. Another widely known piece is Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, taken from his poem The Brewing of Soma. He also wrote a book speaking out against slavery in Poems Written during the Progress of the Abolition Question. Whittier's Quaker beliefs are illustrated by the hymn that begins: For other uses, see Hymn (disambiguation). ... The Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British Industrial Revolution and the apex of the British Empire. ... This article is about Universalism in religion and theology. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Dear Lord and Father of Mankind is a popular hymn with words taken from a poem by Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier. ... Dear Lord and Father of Mankind is a popular hymn with words taken from a poem by Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier. ...

Broadside publication of Whittier's Our Countrymen in Chains

O Brother Man, fold to thy heart thy brother:

Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;

To worship rightly is to love each other,

Each smile a hymn, each kindly word a prayer.

Also shown in his poem "To Rönge" in honour of Johannes Ronge, the German religious figure and rebel leader of the 1848 rebellion in Germany: Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (821x1244, 382 KB) [edit] Summary [edit] Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): John Greenleaf Whittier User:Davepape/Images Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (821x1244, 382 KB) [edit] Summary [edit] Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): John Greenleaf Whittier User:Davepape/Images Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added... Johannes von Rönge (16 October 1813 (in Bischofswalde) - 26 October 1887 (in Vienna)) was an early builder of the Christian denomination of New Catholics. ...

Thy work is to hew down. In God's name then:

Put nerve into thy task. Let other men;

Plant, as they may, that better tree whose fruit,

The wounded bosom of the Church shall heal.

Whittier's poem "At Port Royal 1861" describes the experience of Northern abolitionists arriving at Port Royal, South Carolina, as teachers and missionaries for the slaves who had been left behind when their owners fled because the Union Navy would arrive to blockade the coast. The poem includes the "Song of the Negro Boatmen," written in dialect: The Battle of Port Royal was one of the earliest amphibious operations of the American Civil War, in which a United States Navy fleet and United States Army expeditionary force captured Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, on November 7, 1861. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

Oh, praise an' tanks! De Lord he come

To set de people free;

An' massa tink it day ob doom,

An' we ob jubilee.

De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves

He jus' as 'trong as den;

He say de word: we las' night slaves;

To-day, de Lord's freemen.

De yam will grow, de cotton blow,

We'll hab de rice an' corn:

Oh, nebber you fear, if nebber you hear

De driver blow his horn!

Of all the poetry inspired by the Civil War, the "Song of the Negro Boatmen" was one of the most widely printed,^[2] and though Whittier never actually visited Port Royal, an abolitionist working there described his "Song of the Negro Boatmen" as "wonderfully applicable as we were being rowed across Hilton Head Harbor among United States gunboats."^[3] Combatants United States of America (Union) Confederate States of America (Confederacy) Commanders Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee Strength 2,200,000 1,064,000 Casualties 110,000 killed in action, 360,000 total dead, 275,200 wounded 93,000 killed in action, 258,000 total...

Legacy

A bridge named for Whittier, built in the style of the Sagamore and Bourne Bridges spanning Cape Cod Canal, carries Interstate 95 from Amesbury to Newburyport over the Merrimack River. The city of Whittier, California, the community of Whittier, Alaska, the Minneapolis neighborhood of Whittier and the town of Greenleaf, Idaho were named in his honor. Both Whittier College and Whittier Law School are also named after him. In addition, an elementary school in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Berkeley, California bear his name, along with middle schools in San Antonio, Texas, Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Oak Park, Illinois. From 1922 to 2007, there was also a Whittier Elementary in Royal Oak, Michigan. The Sagamore Bridge carries U.S. Highway 6 across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the rest of Massachusetts, USA. Most traffic approaching from the north follows Massachusetts Route 3, which ends at US 6, just north of the bridge, and provides freeway connections from Boston and Interstate... The Bourne Bridge carries Massachusetts Route 28 across the Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod with the rest of Massachusetts, USA. Most traffic approaching from the north follows Massachusetts Route 25, which ends at Route 28, just north of the bridge, and provides freeway connections from Interstate 495 and Interstate... The Cape Cod Canal is a man-made waterway traversing the narrow neck of land that anchors Cape Cod to mainland Massachusetts. ... Interstate 95 is 92 miles in the state of Massachusetts. ... Newburyport is a small coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, 38 miles (61 km) northeast of Boston. ... Merrimack River watershed The Merrimack River (or Merrimac River, an earlier spelling that is sometimes still used) is a -long river in the Northeastern United States. ... Whittier is a city in Los Angeles County, California about 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Los Angeles. ... This article is about the city in Minnesota. ... Whittier is a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota known for its many restaurants, coffee shops and Asian markets, especially along Nicollet (Eat Street) and Lyndale Avenues. ... Greenleaf is a city in Canyon County, Idaho, United States. ... Southwest Quadrant Whittier College in 1912 Hoover Hall and Library Whittier College is a private liberal arts college in Whittier, California. ... Whittier Law School is the law school of Whittier College, located on a satellite campus in Orange County in the city of Costa Mesa, CA, USA. // Whittier has nationally recognized centers in Children’s Rights, Intellectual Property Law, and International & Comparative Law, which host fellows, offer externships, and sponsor symposia... Kenosha is a city located in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... Berkeley is a city on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in Northern California, in the United States. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... San Antonio redirects here. ... Nickname: Motto: Gateway to the Plains Location in Minnehaha County and the state of South Dakota Counties (metropolitan area) Government  - Mayor Dave Munson Area  - City 178. ... Downtown (Oak Park Avenue) Ernest Hemingway Museum Oak Park, Illinois Lake Theater and shops along Lake Street. ... The Royal Oak is the name given to the oak tree within which King Charles II of England hid to escape the Roundheads following the Battle of Worcester in 1651. ... This article is about the U.S. State. ...

Whittier's hometown of Haverhill, Massachusetts has named many buildings and landmarks in his honor including J.G. Whittier Middle School, Greenleaf Elementary, and Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School. Whittier's family farm, John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead also called "Whittier's Birthplace" is now a historic site open to the public as is the John Greenleaf Whittier Home, his residence in Amesbury for 56 years. Location in Essex County in Massachusetts Coordinates: , Country State County Essex County Settled 1640 Incorporated 1641 Government  - Type Mayor-council city  - Mayor James J. Fiorentini Area  - City  35. ... Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School aka Whittier Tech is located in the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and was founded in 1972. ... At 305 Whittier Road in Haverhill, Massachusetts, one will find the John Greenleaf Whittier homestead. ... John Greenleaf Whittier Home, Amesbury, Massachusetts. ...

The alternate history story P.'s Correspondence (1846) by Nathaniel Hawthorne, considered the first such story ever published in English, includes the notice "Whittier, a fiery Quaker youth, to whom the muse had perversely assigned a battle-trumpet, got himself lynched, in South Carolina". The date of that event in Hawthorne's invented timeline was 1835. Alternative history or alternate history can be: A History told from an alternative viewpoint, rather than from the view of imperialist, conqueror, or explorer. ... P.s Correspondence is a 1845 short story by the Nineteenth Century American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, constituting a pioneering work of alternate history. ... 1846 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. ... | Come and take it, slogan of the Texas Revolution 1835 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ...

Quotations

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'" from Whittier's "Maud Muller"
“'Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, / But spare your country’s flag!' she said.” from Whittier's “Barbara Frietchie”
"Then lift that manly right hand, bold ploughman of the wave! Its branded palm shall prophesy, 'Salvation to the Slave!" from Whittier's "The Branded Hand"
"You look as fine as my mother did at 21." John Greenleaf Whittier in John Whittier and Me
"If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being"Songs of Labor

External links

• American National Biography Online: John Greenleaf Whittier

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

John Greenleaf Whittier

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

John Greenleaf Whittier

• Whittier autobiography & poems
• Whittier biography & hymns
• Works by John Greenleaf Whittier at Project Gutenberg
• John Greenleaf Whittier Home, Amesbury, Massachusetts
• Quaker Meeting where Whittier was a member
• Audio of Greenleaf's works by Michael Maglaras
• Whittier Family Homestead and Birthplace of John Greenleaf Whittier

Image File history File links Wikisource-logo. ... The original Wikisource logo. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. ... Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize, archive and distribute cultural works. ...

References

• Pickard, John B. John Greenleaf Whittier: An Introduction and Interpretation. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1961.

Volume 1 The Whittier Bi-centennial Recording Project, featuring the poem "Snow-Bound" read by Michael Maglaras [1] For other uses, see Philadelphia (disambiguation) and Philly. ... The American College of Physicians (ACP) is a national organization of doctors of internal medicine (internists), physicians who specialize in the prevention, detection and treatment of illnesses in adults. ... For other uses, see Chicago (disambiguation). ...

• Jackson, Phyllis Wynn, Victorian Cinderella: The Story of Harriet Beecher Stowe; H. Wolff Book Manufacturing Company, New York, 1947.