The complete online text of Old Portraits, Modern Sketches, Personal Sketches and Tributes by John Greenleaf Whittier.

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) was an American poet whose humanitarianism and great popular appeal established him as an important 19th-century figure. John Greenleaf Whittier was born on a farm near Haverhill, Mass., on Dec. 17, 1807, of poor Quake...

John Greenleaf Whittier's importance to America's cultural life, and the claim he makes on our remembrance, is at least twofold. In the first place his life was and remains a model of dedication to the twin principles of freedom and tolerance. In the lon...

Although John Greenleaf Whittier's reputation as a poet declined drastically in the twentieth century, his career is of continuing interest as an example of the writer functioning as a deeply committed reform activist. In the thirty-year struggle to abol...