American

Little is known of this soldier-poet of the First World War. At least three of his poems were originally published in The Stars and Stripes, an eight-page weekly brought out in France by the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) of the United States Army from February 8, 1918, to June 13, 1919.

Molly Peacock was born June 30, 1947, in Buffalo, New York, and grew up there. After obtaining her B.A. (magna cum laude) from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1969, and her M.A. (with honors) at Johns Hopkins University, she worked in academic administration at Johns Hopkins for seven years before turning full-time to the writing of poetry.

On August 11, 1836, Sarah Morgan Bryan was born in Lexington, Kentucky, the daughter of Southern gentry. After her mother's death in 1844, she lived with different family members before entering Henry Female College in a four-year general degree program in 1855.

Clara G. Dolliver, a San Franciscan, published poems and short stories in journals such as St. Nicholas Magazine and Oliver Optic's Magazine. She was especially well-known for the poem "No Baby in the House" (see Nancy J. Peters and Lawrence Ferlingetti, Literary San Francisco [San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980]: 46-48).

Sara Teasdale was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on August 8, 1884, and received her education at the Mary Institute. Until her marriage in 1914 to Ernst B. Filsinger, a businessman, she lived either in St. Louis or Chicago; afterwards, she lived mainly in New York. She began publishing verse in Harriet Monroe's journal, Poetry.

Born Augustin Nicholas Ruiz de Santayana y Borais on December 16, 1863, George Santayana was raised for eight years in Avila before moving with his family to America. He lived in Boston and was educated at Harvard University, from which he graduated in 1889 with his doctorate and joined its faculty.

After taking his M.A. and Ph.D. at Harvard University, Joseph Warren Beach returned to Minneapolis in 1907 to the Department of English at the University of Minnesota, his undergraduate alma mater. Starting as Assistant Professor, he became Associate Professor in 1917 and Professor in 1924. Beach chaired the English Department from 1939 to 1948, after which time he retired.

Born November 15, 1881, Franklin P. Adams worked for forty years as a leading New York newspaper daily columnist and wit penning light verse and a weekly diary that amused a large and literate audience. A few years after graduating from the Armour Scientific Academy in Chicago in 1899, Adams first entered journalism in Chicago.