Anna, a teacher, served as Markham’s editor and collaborator and encouraged his work on “The Man with the Hoe.”Īlthough Markham never again experienced the critical acclaim “The Man with the Hoe” won him, he was increasingly prolific after its release, publishing The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems in 1899 and Lincoln and Other Poems in 1901. His third marriage, to Anna Catherine Murphy in 1898, proved more successful. In 1887, Markham married Caroline Bailey, who left him after Markham’s mother joined their household. He married Annie Cox in 1875, but the couple divorced in 1884. Markham’s personal life was marked by troubled relationships. Unlike Bierce, Garland admired Markham’s progressive and reformist pieces and encouraged greater realism in his friend’s work. Bierce denounced Markham's radicalism, charging that he was “spreading that gospel of hate known as ‘industrial brotherhood’.” Literary critic and novelist Hamlin Garland, who Markham met in Chicago in 1893, also shaped his literary development. He was influenced by Ambrose Bierce, who preferred Markham’s more idealistic poetry. While “The Man with the Hoe” brought Markham fame as a social reformer, much of his work dealt with romantic themes. It was considered so powerful that railroad magnate Collis Huntington pledged $5,000 for a work that would counter Markham’s inflammatory verse-an offer that was never met. Over the years, the poem appeared in over ten thousand periodicals and in at least forty languages. Based on a painting by French artist Jean Francois Millet entitled Man with a Hoe, Markham’s poem was seen as a commentary on the plight of the working class and became an anthem for the American labor movement. Markham is best known for “The Man with the Hoe,” a work that sparked significant controversy after it was first published in the San Francisco Examiner in January 1899. Although he published his poems in newspapers and magazines in the 1880s and 1890s, it was not until the turn of the twentieth century that he achieved national recognition. He later claimed to have fallen in with a highwayman, with whom he lived a life of crime for several months before entering California College in 1868.Īfter earning a teaching certificate in 1870, Markham began several decades of working in schools, earning a position as a county superintendent in Placerville, California in 1879. Reportedly, Markham ran away when he was fifteen years old in reaction to his mother’s spitefulness and the limits she put on his education. His childhood was colored by an absent father and an oppressive mother, Elizabeth Winchell Markham. He founded the Poetry Society of America in 1910 and served as Oregon’s first poet laureate, from 1923 to 1931.īorn in Oregon City on April 23, 1852, Markham grew up on a farm, which provided him with many of the images and themes that would appear in his poetry.

His work as a poet and social reformer brought him recognition throughout the West and across the United States. Jack London: A Writer's Fight For a Better America by Cecelia Tichi, University of North Carolina Press (2015)Ĭopl_042 Knowland Neg.Throughout most of his life, Edwin Markham was known as the Dean of American Poetry, the Laureate of Labor, and-in his own words-the Poet Highwayman.In 1898, Markham married his third wife, Anna Catherine Murphy (Markham) (1859–1938), and in 1899 their son Virgil Markham was born. (The book also included an excerpt from London's People of the Abyss.) 2 The opening poem was Markham's 'The Man with the Hoe'. 1 London wrote the introduction for Upton Sinclair's Cry for Justice (1915), a collection of poetry and prose calling for social justice. Markham also corresponded with Charmian and Jack London. While in Oakland, Markham got to know Joaquin Miller, Ina Coolbrith, Bret Harte, and Charles Warren Stoddard. Markham Elementary School in Oakland was named in his honor. The latter was read in 1922 at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He was Poet Laureate of Oregon, and is best known for 'The Man with the Hoe' and 'Lincoln, the Man of the People'. Edwin Markham ( Charles Edward Anson Markham) (Ap– March 7, 1940) was a poet and the principal of the Tompkins School in Oakland from 1890 (or 1891) until 1899.

Biography of edwin markham