George William Curtis | |
|---|---|
 Curtis between 1855 and 1865 | |
| Born | February 24, 1824 Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.[1] |
| Died | August 31, 1892(1892-08-31) (aged 68) New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, editor |
| Political party | Republican |
| Signature | |
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George William Curtis (February 24, 1824 – August 31, 1892) was an American writer, reformer, public speaker, and political activist. He was anabolitionist and supporter ofcivil rights for African Americans andNative Americans. He also advocatedwomen's suffrage,civil service reform, andpublic education.[citation needed]
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George William Curtis was born inProvidence, Rhode Island on February 24, 1824.[2] His father was also named George Curtis. His mother, Mary Elizabeth (Burrill) Curtis, was the daughter of former United States SenatorJames Burrill Jr. and died when the infant George was two years old.
At six, George was sent with his elder brotherJames Burrill Curtis to school inJamaica Plain, Massachusetts, where he remained for five years. In 1835, his father having remarried happily, the boys were brought home to Providence, where they stayed until around 1839, when they moved with their father to New York. Three years later, George and James fell in sympathy with the spirit of thetranscendental movement and joined theBrook Farm communal experiment from 1842 to 1843.[3] After leaving Brook Farm, George spent two years in New York andConcord, Massachusetts to be close toRalph Waldo Emerson.
From 1846 to 1850, Curtis travelled through Europe,Egypt andSyria.[4] His travels formed the basis for his first work as an author. He returned in 1850 and settled onStaten Island and began work as a lecturer. He obtained a post on theNew-York Tribune and started work onNile Notes of a Howadji (1851), a journal of his travels on the Nile. He became a favorite in New York City society.[4] He wrote forPutnam's Magazine which he helpedGeorge Palmer Putnam to found. He became an associate editor along withParke Godwin and managing editorCharles Frederick Briggs; the three also collaborated on agift book calledThe Homes of American Authors (1853).[3]
Curtis produced a number of volumes, composed of essays written forPutnam's and forHarper's Weekly, which came in rapid succession from his pen. The chief of these were thePotiphar Papers (1853), a satire on the fashionable society of the day; andPrue and I (1856), a pleasantly sentimental, fancifully tender and humorous study of life. In 1855 he married Anna Shaw, daughter of abolitionist Francis Shaw and sister ofRobert Gould Shaw of the famed54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Not long afterwards he became, through no fault of his own, deeply involved in debt owing to the failure ofPutnam's Magazine; and his sense of honour compelled him to spend the greater part of his earnings for many years on discharging the obligations for which he had become responsible, and from which he might have freed himself by legal process. In the period just preceding theCivil War, other interests became subordinate to those of national concern. He was involved in the founding of theRepublican Party, and made his first important speech on the questions of the day atWesleyan University in 1856; he engaged actively inJohn C. Fremont's presidential campaign of 1856 (the Republican campaign headquarters were located not far from his Staten Island home), and was soon recognized not only as an effective public speaker, but also as one of the ablest, most high-minded, and most trustworthy leaders of public opinion.[4]
In 1862 George William Curtis delivered his "Doctrine of Liberty" address toPhi Beta Kappa society atHarvard, on behalf of PresidentAbraham Lincoln, who was encouraging support for theEmancipation Proclamation. In it, he laid out the intellectual foundations for the purpose of American education that would last another 30 years, and public schools, nearly 100 years.[clarification needed]
In 1863 he became the political editor ofHarper's Weekly, which was highly influential in shaping public opinion. Curtis's writing was always clear and direct, displaying fairness of mind and good temper. He had high moral standards. From month to month, he contributed toHarper's Magazine, under the title of "The Easy Chair," brief essays on topics of social and literary interest, charming in style, touched with delicate humour and instinct with generous spirit. His service to theRepublican party was such, that he was offered several nominations to office, and might have been sent as minister to England; but he refused all such offers, preferring to serve the country as editor and public speaker.[4]
In 1871 he was appointed, byPresident Ulysses S. Grant, to chair the commission on the reform of thecivil service. Its report was the foundation of every effort since made for the purification and regulation of the service and for the destruction of political patronage. From that time Curtis was the leader in this reform, and its progress is mainly due to him. He was president of theNational Civil Service Reform League and of the New York Civil Service Reform Association. In 1884 he refused to supportJames G. Blaine as candidate for the presidency and thus broke with the Republican party, of which he had been a founder and leader. From that time he stood as the typical independent in politics. In 1892, he was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Society.[5] In April of that year, he delivered at Baltimore his eleventh annual address as president of the National Civil Service Reform League, and in May he appeared for the last time in public, to repeat in New York an address onJames Russell Lowell, which he had first delivered in Brooklyn on the 22nd of the preceding February, the anniversary of Lowell's birth.[4]
Curtis was one of the original members of the Board of Education for what would become New York City and advocated educational reforms. He was a member of and frequent speaker at the Unitarian Church on Staten Island (the congregation still meets in the same building). A high school not far from his home is named for him. He is also immortalized with an annual namesake oratorical prize awarded byColumbia College of Columbia University.
He married Anna Shaw Curtis at the Unitarian Church of the Redeemer in 1856. Curtis, anotherNew England transplant toStaten Island, was a founding member of the Unitarian Church of Staten Island (originally the Unitarian Church of the Redeemer), an author, editor ofPutnam's Magazine, and columnist forHarper's Weekly.
The Curtis and Shaw families counted Emerson,Nathaniel Hawthorne andHenry David Thoreau among their close associates.[6]
TheUnderground Railroad was in use during the 1850s to helprunaway slaves, and it is believed that the Curtises and the Shaws were very involved in the Railroad. The Shaw sisters, Anna and Josephine, and their mother, Sarah Sturgis, also spearheaded local efforts to help during theCivil War. George Curtis was targeted by Southern sympathizers, and Anna and her three children left Staten Island temporarily during theNew York City draft riots in 1863 for the safety of her grandparents’ home inRoxbury, Massachusetts.[citation needed]
Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Norton, Charles Eliot (1911). "Curtis, George William". InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 652.
