“stately movement of versification, grandeur of imagery, a vein of tender and solemn pathos, cheerful trust”
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John Greenleaf Whittier
John Greenleaf Whittier was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Whittier is remembered particularly for his anti-slavery writings, as well as his 1866 book Snow-Bound.
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culture · American Quaker poet and abolitionist (1807–1892) · writer · poet · journalist · lawyer · also John Greenleaf Whittier, Whittier
Born 17 December 1807 · Died 7 September 1892 · Q458372
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2026· 1 entry
2020· 1 entry
A statue previously erected in his honor in Whittier, California, was defaced with antislavery and Black Lives Matter slogans by vandals
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1892· 2 entries
Died 1892-09-07.
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And was buried in Amesbury, Massachusetts
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1865· 1 entry
Ended both slavery and his public cause, and so Whittier turned to other forms of poetry for the remainder of his life
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1864· 1 entry
The North American Review responded to Whittier's collection In War Time, and Other Poems, by calling him "on the whole, the most American of all our poets, and there is a fire of warlike patriotism in him that burns all
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1863· 1 entry
Was read for generations by American school children
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1847· 1 entry
Whittier was the editor of Gamaliel Bailey's The National Era, one of the most influential abolitionist newspapers in the North
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1845· 1 entry
Began writing his essay "The Black Man" which included an anecdote about John Fountain, a free black who was jailed in Virginia for helping slaves to escape
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1840· 1 entry
Attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London
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1838· 1 entry
Which became known as the "Atherton Gag"; Whittier referred to Atherton in one of his many abolition poems as "vile" by having allied himself so closely with his fellow Democrats from pro-slavery South
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1833· 2 entries
Published The Song of the Vermonters, 1779, which he had anonymously inserted in The New England Magazine
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Whittier published the antislavery pamphlet Justice and Expediency, and from there dedicated the next twenty years of his life to the abolitionist cause
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1807· 1 entry
Born 1807-12-17.
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