James Parton | |
|---|---|
 Parton c. 1870 | |
| Born | February 9, 1822 Canterbury, England |
| Died | October 17, 1891 (aged 69) Newburyport, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Subject | Biography |
| Spouse |
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James Parton (February 9, 1822 – October 17, 1891) was an English-born American biographer who wrote books on the lives of Horace Greeley, Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Voltaire, and contributed three biographies to Eminent Women of the Age. [1]
Parton was born in Canterbury, England, in 1822. He was taken to the United States when he was five years old, studied in New York City and White Plains, New York, and was a schoolmaster in Philadelphia and then in New York. He moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he died on October 17, 1891. [2]
Parton was the most popular biographer of his day in America. Parton's nonfiction combined elements of novel writing, which made his books quite popular. Harriet Beecher Stowe once thanked him "for the pleasure you have given me in biographical works which you have had the faculty of making more interesting than romance—(let me trust it is not by making them in part works of imagination)." [3]
His first wife, Sara (1811–1872), sister of Nathaniel Parker Willis, and widow of Charles H. Eldredge (d. 1846), attained considerable popularity as a writer under the pen name Fanny Fern. They were married in 1856. Her works include the novels, Ruth Hall (1854), reminiscent of her own life, and Rose Clark (1857); and several volumes of sketches and stories. [2]
In 1876 Parton married Ellen Willis Eldredge, his first wife's daughter by her first husband, Charles Eldredge. With Ellen (and previously Fanny Fern), he raised Ethel, the daughter of Grace Eldredge (Fanny Fern's daughter) and writer Mortimer Thomson (also known as Philander Doesticks). Although never legally adopted by Parton, she took his last name upon reaching her majority. Ethel Parton became a famous writer of children's books about 19th-century life in Newburyport, MA, published in the 1930s and 1940s.
James and Ellen had two children, Hugo and Mabel. Hugo's children, who constitute James Parton's legal and genetic grandchildren, were
Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor and publisher who was the founder and editor of the New-York Tribune. Long active in politics, he served briefly as a congressman from New York and was the unsuccessful candidate of the new Liberal Republican Party in the 1872 presidential election against incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant, who won by a landslide.
Frances Anne "Fanny" Kemble was a British actress from a theatre family in the early and mid-19th century. She was a well-known and popular writer and abolitionist whose published works included plays, poetry, eleven volumes of memoirs, travel writing, and works about the theatre.
Alice Cary was an American poet, and the older sister of fellow poet Phoebe Cary (1824–1871).
Frances Sargent Osgood was an American poet and one of the most popular women writers during her time. Nicknamed "Fanny", she was also famous for her exchange of romantic poems with Edgar Allan Poe.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson was an American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, politician, and soldier. He was active in abolitionism in the United States during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism. He was a member of the Secret Six who supported John Brown. During the Civil War, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized black regiment, from 1862 to 1864. Following the war, he wrote about his experiences with African American soldiers and devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for the rights of freed people, women, and other disfranchised peoples. He is also remembered as a mentor to poet Emily Dickinson.
Nathaniel Parker Willis, also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. His brother was the composer Richard Storrs Willis and his sister Sara wrote under the name Fanny Fern. Harriet Jacobs wrote her autobiography while being employed as his children's nurse.
Phoebe Cary was an American poet, and the younger sister of poet Alice Cary (1820–1871). The sisters co-published poems in 1849, and then each went on to publish volumes of their own. After their deaths in 1871, joint anthologies of the sisters' unpublished poems were also compiled.
Sara Jane Lippincott was an American author, poet, correspondent, lecturer, and newspaper founder. One of the first women to gain access into the Congressional press galleries, she used her questions to advocate for social reform and women's rights.
Emily Chubbuck was an American writer.
A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of their life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.
Fanny Fern, was an American novelist, children's writer, humorist, and newspaper columnist in the 1850s to 1870s. Her popularity has been attributed to a conversational style and sense of what mattered to her mostly middle-class female readers.
Anne Charlotte Lynch Botta was an American poet, writer, teacher and socialite whose home was the central gathering place of the literary elite of her era.
Jane Maria Eliza Cazneau was an Irish-American journalist, lobbyist, and publicist who advocated the annexation of all of Mexico during the Mexican–American War.
Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time is a roman à clef by Fanny Fern, a popular 19th-century newspaper writer. Following on her meteoric rise to fame as a columnist, she signed a contract in February 1854 to write a full-length novel. She finished Ruth Hall within a few months, and it was first published in November 1854.
The Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men comprised ten volumes of Dionysius Lardner's 133-volume Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–1846). Aimed at the self-educating middle class, this encyclopedia was written during the 19th-century literary revolution in Britain that encouraged more people to read.
Nathaniel Willis (1780–1870) was an editor and publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, in the 19th century. He established the Eastern Argus and the Boston Recorder newspapers, and The Youth's Companion magazine.
Jane Andrews was an American author and educator.
John Randall Anthony Taraborrelli is an American journalist and celebrity biographer. Prior to his book-writing career, he was a magazine journalist and editor-in-chief of Soul magazine, the black entertainment title. Taraborrelli is known for biographies of contemporary entertainers and political figures such as Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, Madonna, the Kennedy family, the Hilton family, and Beyoncé. He also regularly appears on television as an entertainment news reporter on programs such as Entertainment Tonight, Good Morning America, Today and CBS This Morning. Taraborrelli lives in California.
Minnie Willis Baines was an American author. She favored temperance, morality, religion, and women's suffrage, writing innumerable short stories and poems in magazines and papers from the age of fourteen. Her most notable works were The Silent Land; His Cousin, The Doctor;The Pilgrim's Vision; and Mrs. Cherry's Sister. Baines-Miller died in 1923.
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