Eugene Field
Eugene Field Sr. (September 2, 1850 – November 4, 1895) was an American writer, best known for his children's poetry and humorous essays. He was known as the "poet of childhood".[1]
Eugene Field Sr.
September 2, 1850
November 4, 1895 (aged 45)
American
Writer
Early life and education[edit]
Field was born in St. Louis, Missouri at 634 S. Broadway where today his boyhood home is open to the public as The Eugene Field House and St. Louis Toy Museum.[1] After the death of his mother in 1856, he was raised by an aunt, Mary Field French, in Amherst, Massachusetts.[2]
Field's father, attorney Roswell Martin Field, was the lawyer who filed Dred Scott's case.
Field attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. His father died when Eugene turned 19, and he subsequently dropped out of Williams after eight months. He then went to Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, but dropped out after a year, followed by the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, where his brother Roswell was also attending. Field was not a serious student and spent much of his time at school playing practical jokes. He led raids on the president's wine cellar, painted the president's house school colors, and fired the school's landmark cannons at midnight.[1] Field tried acting, studied law with little success, and also wrote for the student newspaper. He then set off for a trip through Europe but returned to the United States six months later, penniless.
Legacy[edit]
Several of his poems were set to music with commercial success by composers such as Isabel Stewart North,[14] Gertrude Ross,[15] and Ella May Dunning Smith.[16] Many of his works were accompanied by paintings from Maxfield Parrish.
His childhood home in St. Louis is now a museum.[17] The Eugene Field House contains many of Field's mementos, including original manuscripts, books, furniture, personal effects, and some of the toys that inspired his poems.[1]
Field has his own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.[18]
In 2016, Field was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.[19]
As a memorial to Field, a statue of the Dream Lady from his poem "Rock-a-by-Lady" was erected in 1922 at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. There is also a park and fieldhouse named in his honor in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood. In nearby Oak Park, Illinois, another park is named in his honor. A statue of Wynken, Blynken and Nod adorns Washington Park, near Field's Denver home. Another statue of Wynken, Blynken and Nod sits in the center of the town square (called "the green" by locals) in Wellsboro, Pa.
Numerous elementary schools throughout the Midwest are named for him, e.g. Eugene Field Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois; Wheeling, Illinois; Rock Island, Illinois; Elmhurst, Illinois; Normal, Illinois; Park Ridge, Illinois; Maryville, Missouri; St. Joseph, Missouri; Hannibal, Missouri; Columbia, Missouri; Mexico, Missouri; Neosho, Missouri; Poplar Bluff, Missouri; Springfield, Missouri; Webb City, Missouri; Manhattan, Kansas; Ottawa, Kansas; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and formerly in Muncie, Indiana (closed in 1973).
Other schools named after Field are located in Littleton, Colorado; Mitchell, South Dakota;Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Altus, Oklahoma; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Hugo, Oklahoma; Beaumont, Texas; Houston, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Mesa, Arizona; Pasadena, California; San Diego, California; and Silverton, Oregon.
One of the branches of the Denver Public Library near Field's Denver home is named after him, as is an apartment building in Denver's Poet's Row. A dormitory in the Orchard Hill residential area at the University of Massachusetts Amherst also bears Field's name.[20][21]
Before his death, Field wrote and published an anonymous work about a 12-year-old boy being seduced by a woman in her 30s. It was titled "Only a Boy". In the 1920s, American drama critic and magazine editor George Jean Nathan recalled it as a popular forbidden work among those coming of age at the turn of the century, along with Fanny Hill and "Green Girls of Paris". It was published by Grove Press in 1968 with the real author's name.
