Curated playlist
19th-century American male writers
- Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe's executor used forged letters to paint him as a drunken madman.
- Herman MelvilleHerman Melville's death notice misspelled his great novel as "Mobie Dick."
- Theodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest, then gave a 90-minute speech. It happened in Milwaukee in October 1912.
- Ulysses S. GrantIn 1859, Ulysses S. Grant freed an enslaved man worth at least $1,000 that he desperately needed.
- Joseph PriestleyJoseph Priestley isolated oxygen but never accepted what it meant.
- Nathaniel HawthorneNathaniel Hawthorne paid $100 to print his first novel, then tried to suppress every surviving copy.
- Henry Wadsworth LongfellowLongfellow used his own body to smother the flames on his wife's burning dress. He wore a beard from then on.
- Joseph SmithJoseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, was held in a jailer's bedroom in Carthage, Illinois, on the 27th of June 1844. That day an armed mob with blackened faces stormed the building. Smith took the attackers for his…
- Ralph Waldo EmersonRalph Waldo Emerson put a plain question to Henry David Thoreau in the fall of 1837. "Do you keep a journal?" he asked. The question became a lifelong inspiration for Thoreau. Emerson had his own answer to it. His journal was eventually…
- Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass never knew his birthday, so he picked February 14. His mother had called him her Little Valentine.
- Charles J. GuiteauCharles Julius Guiteau was marched to a police station a few blocks from a Washington railroad depot, repeating one line over and over. "I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts.... Arthur is president now!" The man he had just shot was James A.…
- Jefferson DavisWhy was Confederate president Jefferson Davis never tried for treason? Prosecutors feared an acquittal.
- Upton SinclairUpton Sinclair aimed his novel The Jungle at the public's heart and hit its stomach instead. Meat sales fell by half.
- Horace GreeleyHorace Greeley could not breathe for the first twenty minutes of his life. He later founded the New-York Tribune.
- Henry Steel OlcottHenry Steel Olcott was the first well-known American of European ancestry to formally convert to Buddhism.
- Nathaniel P. BanksA former mill bobbin boy became Speaker of the U.S. House. Nathaniel P. Banks won on the 133rd ballot in 1856.
- Stand WatieStand Watie was the last Confederate general to give up the fight.
- Andrew Hull FooteAndrew Hull Foote quit West Point after six months to go to sea. He later helped end the Navy's grog ration.