Edward Everett Hale | |
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 FromThe Critic (1901) | |
| Born | April 3, 1822 Boston,Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | June 10, 1909(1909-06-10) (aged 87) Roxbury, Boston,Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Education | Boston Latin School Harvard College(1839) Harvard Divinity School |
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| Children | nine, includingEllen Day Hale(daughter) andPhilip Leslie Hale(son) |
| Parent(s) | Nathan Hale Sarah Preston Everett |
| Relatives | Lucretia Peabody Hale(sister) Susan Hale(sister) Charles Hale(brother) Edward Everett(maternal uncle) Nathan Hale(granduncle) |
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Edward Everett Hale (April 3, 1822 – June 10, 1909) was an American author, historian, andUnitarianminister, best known for his writings such as "The Man Without a Country", published inAtlantic Monthly, in support of theUnion during theCivil War. He was the grand-nephew ofNathan Hale, the American spy during theRevolutionary War.
Hale was born on April 3, 1822,[1] inBoston,Massachusetts, the son ofNathan Hale (1784–1863), proprietor and editor of theBoston Daily Advertiser, andSarah Preston Everett; and the brother ofLucretia Peabody Hale,Susan Hale, andCharles Hale. Edward Hale was a nephew ofEdward Everett, the orator and statesman, and grand-nephew ofNathan Hale (1755–1776), the Revolutionary War hero executed by the British for espionage. Edward Everett Hale was also a descendant ofRichard Everett and related toHelen Keller.[citation needed]
Hale was achild prodigy who exhibited extraordinary literary skills. He graduated fromBoston Latin School at age 13[2] and enrolled atHarvard College immediately after. There, he settled in with the literary set, won twoBowdoin Prizes and was elected the Class Poet.[2] He graduated second in his class in 1839[3] and then studied atHarvard Divinity School. Decades later, he reflected on the new liberal theology there:
The group of leaders who surrounded Dr.[William Ellery] Channing had, with him, broken forever from the fetters of Calvinistic theology. These young people were trained to know that human nature is not totally depraved. They were taught that there is nothing of which it is not capable... For such reasons, and many more, the young New Englanders of liberal training rushed into life, certain that the next half century was to see a complete moral revolution in the world.[4]
Hale was licensed to preach as aUnitarian minister in 1842[3] by the Boston Association of Ministers. In 1846 he became pastor of the Church of the Unity inWorcester, Massachusetts.[2] Hale married Emily Baldwin Perkins in 1852; she was the niece of Connecticut Governor and U.S. SenatorRoger Sherman Baldwin andEmily Pitkin Perkins Baldwin on her father's side andLyman Beecher,Harriet Beecher Stowe andHenry Ward Beecher on her mother's side. They had nine children: Alexander, born and died 1853;Ellen Day, 1854–1939; Arthur, 1859–1939;Charles Alexander, 1861–1867; Edward Everett Jr., 1863–1932;Philip Leslie Hale, 1865–1931; Herbert Dudley, 1866–1908; Henry Kidder, 1868–1876; Robert Beverly, 1869–1895.[2][5]
Hale left the Unity Church in 1856 to become pastor at the South Congregational Church, Boston, where he served until 1899.
In 1847 Hale was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society,[6] and he would be involved with the society for the rest of his life, taking up various positions in the service of the society. He served two non-consecutive terms on its board of councilors, from 1852 to 1854, and a lengthy term from 1858 to 1891, and as recording secretary from 1854 to 1858. He served as vice-president of the society from 1891 to 1906, served a shorter term as president from 1906 to 1907, then again took up the position of vice-president from 1907 to 1909.[7]
Hale first came to notice as a writer in 1859, when he contributed the short story "My Double and How He Undid Me" to theAtlantic Monthly. He soon published other stories in the same periodical. His best known work was "The Man Without a Country", published in theAtlantic in 1863 and intended to strengthen support for the Union cause in the North.[3] As in some of his other non-romantic tales, he employed a minute realism which led his readers to suppose the narrative a record of fact. These two stories and such others as "The Rag-Man and the Rag-Woman" and "The Skeleton in the Closet", gave him a prominent position among short-story writers of 19th century America. His short story "The Brick Moon", serialized in theAtlantic Monthly, is the first known fictional description of an artificialsatellite. It was possibly an influence on the novelThe Begum's Fortune byJules Verne. He was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1865.[8] In 1870, he was elected as a member to theAmerican Philosophical Society.[9]
In recognition of his support for the Union during theAmerican Civil War, Hale was elected as a Third Class Companion of theMilitary Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
Hale assisted in founding theChristian Examiner, Old and New in 1869 and became its editor.[2] The story "Ten Times One is Ten" (1870), with its hero Harry Wadsworth, contained the motto, first enunciated in 1869 in hisLowell Institute lectures: "Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand." This motto was the basis for the formation of Lend-a-Hand Clubs, Look-up Legions and Harry Wadsworth Clubs for young people. Out of the romantic Waldensian story "In His Name" (1873) there similarly grew several other organizations for religious work, such as King's Daughters, and King's Sons. In 1875, theChristian Examiner merged with Scribner's Magazine.[2] In 1881, Hale published the story "Hands Off" inHarper's New Monthly Magazine. In the tale, a narrator goes through time to alter events in the past, thereby creating an alternate timeline.Paul J. Nahin writes that this story makes Hale a pioneer in emerging science fiction, time travel, and stories about changing the past.[10]
In the early 1880sHarriet E. "Hattie" Freeman became one of Hale's volunteer secretaries. Her family had been connected with Hale's church since 1861. As Hattie and Hale worked together they grew closer and closer. According to historian Sara Day, their relationship became loving and intimate. Day came to this conclusion after studying 3,000 Hale-Freeman love letters (1884–1909) held by the Library of Congress. The letters, donated to the library in 1969, had held their secrets until 2006 when Day realized that the intimate passages were written in Towndrow's shorthand.[11]
In 1886, Hale foundedLend a Hand, which merged with theCharities Review in 1897, and theLend a Hand Record.[2] Throughout his life he contributed many articles on a variety of subjects to the periodicals of his day including theNorth American Review, theAtlantic Monthly, theChristian Register, theOutlook, and many more.[2] He was the author or editor of more than sixty books—fiction, travel, sermons, biography and history.[5]
On November 20, 1891, Hale founded the Ten Times One Corporation to implement the ideas laid out in the original story. In 1898, the organization changed its name toLend A Hand Society, and continues to serve those in need in the Boston, MA area.
He was awardedAmerican Library Association Honorary Membership in 1895.[12]
Hale retired as minister from the South Congregational Church in 1899 and chose as his successor Edward Cummings, father ofE. E. Cummings.[13] By the turn of the century, Hale was recognized as among the nation's most important men of letters. Bostonians asked him to help ring in the new century on December 31, 1900, by presenting a psalm on the balcony of theMassachusetts State House.[14]
In 1903 he becameChaplain of the United States Senate, and joined theLiterary Society of Washington.[15] The next year, he was elected as a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. Also in 1904, he was one of several high-profile investors who backed theIntercontinental Correspondence University,[16] but the institution folded by 1915.
Hale lived from 1869 to his death at theEdward Everett Hale House in Roxbury.[17]He maintained asummer home inSouth Kingstown, Rhode Island where he and his family often spent summer months.[18]
Hale died in Roxbury, by then part of Boston, in 1909. He was buried atForest Hills Cemetery inJamaica Plain, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. A life-size likeness inbronze statue memorializing the man and his works stands in theBoston Public Garden.[19]
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Combining a forceful personality, organizing genius, and liberal practicaltheology, Hale was active in raising the tone of American life for half a century. He had a deep interest in the anti-slavery movement (especially in Kansas), as well as popular education (involving himself especially with theChautauqua adult-education movement), and the working-man's home.
He published a wide variety of works in fiction, history and biography. He used his writings and the two magazines he founded,Old and New (1870–75) andLend a Hand (1886–97), to advance a number of social reforms, including religious tolerance, theabolition of slavery and wider education. Writer-educator Mary Lowe Dickinson served as Hale's associate editor forLend a Hand.[20]
Hale supported Irish immigration in the mid-19th century, as he felt the new workers freed Americans from performing menial, hard labor. In a series of letters in theBoston Daily Advertiser, he noted the "inferiority" of immigrants: "[it] compels them to go the bottom; and the consequence is that we are, all of us, the higher lifted."[21]
Edward Everett Hale's story "The Man Without a Country" (1863) opened with the sentence: "I was stranded at the oldMission House in Mackinaw, waiting for a Lake Superior steamer which did not choose to come." In his 1893 and 1900 reminiscences, Hale states that "To write the story of 'The Man Without a Country' and its sequel, 'Philip Nolan's Friends,' I had to make as careful a study as I could of the history of the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States."[22]
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| Preceded by | 51st US Senate Chaplain December 14, 1903 – June 18, 1909 | Succeeded by |
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