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...

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...

Whittier's importance to America's cultural life, and the claim he makes on our remembrance, is at least two-fold. In the first place, his life was and remains a model of dedication to the twin principles of freedom and tolerance. In the long struggle...

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...