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Notable people · Writer

Sherwood Anderson

Novelist and short-story writer whose Winesburg, Ohio (1919), drawn from his boyhood in Clyde, changed the American short story; he walked away from a paint business in Elyria in 1912 to write.

Born September 13, 1876, Camden (142 S. Lafayette Street)
Died March 8, 1941, Colón, Panama

Sherwood Anderson
Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born
September 13, 1876, Camden (142 S. Lafayette Street) (Preble County) source
Died
March 8, 1941, Colón, Panama source
Buried
Round Hill Cemetery, Marion, Virginia source
Also known as
Sherwood Anderson, Jobby
Education
Wittenberg Academy, Springfield, OH, 1899-1900
Known as
Writer

Life story

Sherwood Anderson was born in Camden, Ohio, and grew up mostly in Clyde, where his father struggled with drink and money. He left school at 14 and took odd jobs.

After service in Cuba in 1898 he studied at Wittenberg Academy and entered business, running a paint and mail-order firm in Elyria. In 1912 he walked out of his office in a breakdown and turned to writing.

Winesburg, Ohio (1919), stories about a small Ohio town drawn from Clyde, became his best-known book. He married four times.

He died in Panama in 1941 and is buried in Marion, Virginia.

Ohio ties

  • Camden (1876-1877)
    birthplace, 142 S. Lafayette Street; the family left just before his first birthday Preble County · source
  • Independence (now Butler) (about 1877)
    brief family stop after Camden Richland County · source
  • Caledonia (four or five years before 1884)
    early childhood home Marion County · source
  • Clyde (1884-1896, and 1898-1899 for the war)
    boyhood home and model for Winesburg; newsboy, stable groom, bicycle assembler at the Elmore Manufacturing Company; member of the town's National Guard company Sandusky County · source
  • Springfield (Wittenberg Academy) (1899-1900)
    finished his schooling at Wittenberg Academy after the war Clark County · source
  • Toledo (1903)
    met Cornelia Pratt Lane, his first wife, on advertising business Lucas County · source
  • Lucas (1904)
    married Cornelia Pratt Lane on May 16 Richland County · source
  • Cleveland (1906-1907)
    president of the United Factories Company, a mail-order firm Cuyahoga County · source
  • Elyria (1907-1913)
    owner of the Anderson Manufacturing Company (Roof-Fix paint) in the old Topliff and Ely plant on the Black River Lorain County · source

Timeline

  1. 1876 Born September 13 in Camden, third of seven children of Irwin McLain Anderson, a Union veteran and harness maker, and Emma Jane Smith Anderson. source
  2. 1884 The family settled in Clyde after short stays in Independence and Caledonia. source
  3. 1895 Joined the Ohio National Guard in March; his mother died of tuberculosis on May 10 and was buried in Clyde's McPherson Cemetery. source
  4. 1898 Mustered into federal service with Company I of Clyde, 6th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, as a corporal, for the Spanish-American War. source
  5. 1899 His regiment was stationed around Cienfuegos and Trinidad, Cuba, from January to April without seeing combat and was mustered out May 24; in September he entered Wittenberg Academy in Springfield. source
  6. 1904 Married Cornelia Pratt Lane, whom he had met in Toledo in 1903, on May 16 in Lucas, Ohio. source
  7. 1906 Left Chicago on Labor Day to become president of the United Factories Company in Cleveland. source
  8. 1907 Moved to Elyria in September and started a mail-order business selling Roof-Fix paint, which became the Anderson Manufacturing Company. source
  9. 1912 On Thanksgiving Day, November 28, walked out of his Elyria office mid-dictation; he was found December 1 in a Cleveland drugstore on East 152nd Street and taken to Huron Road Hospital. source
  10. 1913 Gave up the Elyria business and returned to advertising work in Chicago. source
  11. 1916 Published his first novel, Windy McPherson's Son. source
  12. 1919 B. W. Huebsch published Winesburg, Ohio on May 8; most of the stories were written in a Chicago rooming house at 735 Cass Street in 1915-1916. source
  13. 1920 Published Poor White, a novel of industrialization in a small Ohio town. source
  14. 1921 Received the first annual Dial award in December. source
  15. 1927 Moved to rural Virginia, where he bought and ran two newspapers in Marion. source
  16. 1941 Died March 8 in Colón, Panama, of peritonitis after swallowing part of a toothpick; buried in Round Hill Cemetery, Marion, Virginia. source
  17. 1976 The Clyde Heritage League founded Sherwood Anderson Park in downtown Clyde. source

What Sherwood is known for

  • Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
  • Winesburg, Ohio (1919)
  • Poor White (1920)
  • The Triumph of the Egg (1921)
  • Dark Laughter (1925)
  • Tar: A Midwest Childhood (1926)

Stories

Thanksgiving Day, 1912

By 1912 Anderson owned a mail-order paint business in Elyria that sold Roof-Fix out of the old Topliff and Ely plant on the Black River. On Thanksgiving Day, November 28, he broke off while dictating to his secretary, said something about his wet feet, and walked out. Three days later, on December 1, a pharmacist found him disoriented in a drugstore on East 152nd Street in Cleveland and called Edwin Baxter of the Elyria Chamber of Commerce, who had him taken to Huron Road Hospital. The episode is usually described today as a fugue state brought on by strain. Anderson later told it as a deliberate break with business for the sake of writing, and that version became part of his legend. The riverside factory site is now a chemical plant.

Source

Corporal Anderson and Company I

Anderson joined the Ohio National Guard in Clyde in March 1895, two months before his mother's death. When war with Spain came, the Clyde company became Company I of the 6th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, organized from Toledo, and its roster lists "Sherwood B. Anderson" as a corporal. The regiment spent the summer of 1898 in disease-ridden camps at Chickamauga and in Tennessee and reached Cienfuegos, Cuba, on January 4, 1899, and served there and at Trinidad without seeing combat. It left Cuba in April and was mustered out on May 24, 1899. That September, at 23, Anderson enrolled at Wittenberg Academy in Springfield to finish his schooling.

Source

Jobby of Clyde

The Andersons reached Clyde in 1884, when Sherwood was about eight, after his father's drinking and debts had moved them from Camden and Caledonia. The boy worked as a newsboy, errand boy and stable groom, helped his father paint signs, and assembled bicycles at the Elmore Manufacturing Company, earning the nickname "Jobby." After his mother died in 1895 he boarded at Harvey and Yetter's livery stable. He left for Chicago about a year later. Winesburg, Ohio, written in a Chicago rooming house twenty years after, is generally read as a portrait of Clyde, though scholars note that his fellow boarders fed the characters too.

Source

Honors and things named for them

  • Ripshin Farm National Historic Landmark (Virginia)
  • Chicago Literary Hall of Fame (2012)
  • Sherwood Anderson Foundation (1988)

Named for Sherwood Anderson

Family

  • spouse: Cornelia Pratt Lane
  • spouse: Tennessee Mitchell
  • spouse: Elizabeth Prall
  • spouse: Eleanor Copenhaver

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

123
  • 1 Ohio Historical Marker 4-72, Sherwood Anderson (plates mistakenly numbered 4-68)
    Clyde, Clyde Railroad Plaza, Railroad Street Sandusky County · source
  • 2 Sherwood Anderson Park (founded 1976 by the Clyde Heritage League)
    Clyde, downtown Sandusky County · source
  • 3 Grave of Emma Smith Anderson, the writer's mother, McPherson Cemetery (coordinates are for the cemetery)
    Clyde Sandusky County · source
  • Birthplace, 142 S. Lafayette Street (unknown)
    Camden Preble County · source
  • Site of the Anderson Manufacturing Company (the old Topliff and Ely plant on the Black River; now a chemical plant) (demolished)
    Elyria Lorain County · source

Places in Ohio to see

Ohio places

Where Sherwood Anderson was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Sherwood Anderson, and what the record shows.

Often said Anderson calmly walked out of his Elyria paint factory one afternoon in 1912, deciding to give up business and become a writer.

The record He left his office disoriented on November 28, 1912, and was found on December 1 in a Cleveland drugstore and hospitalized; the episode is generally described as a fugue state. Anderson later recast it as a deliberate choice, and that version became the legend. source

Often said Winesburg, Ohio is about the real village of Winesburg in Holmes County.

The record The real Winesburg in Holmes County is unrelated. Anderson's fictional town is generally regarded as based on his boyhood in Clyde, mixed with people from his Chicago rooming house. source

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

  • Sherwood Anderson
    Public domain
  • Ben Hecht with Sherwood Anderson, autographed by Ben Hecht, n.d.
    Ben Hecht with Sherwood Anderson, autographed by Ben Hecht, n.d.
    Public domain
  • Cover page of Decision: A Review of Free Culture, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 1941), an antifascist journal edited by Klaus M
    Cover page of Decision: A Review of Free Culture, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 1941), an antifascist journal edited ...
    Public domain
  • Dil-Pickle Club, Dil-Pickle Players Present The Black Box by Guy Woodson
    Dil-Pickle Club, Dil-Pickle Players Present The Black Box by Guy Woodson
    Public domain
  • Title: Portrait of Sherwood Anderson, Central Park Physical description: 1 photographic print : gelatin silver. Notes: V
    Title: Portrait of Sherwood Anderson, Central Park Physical description: 1 photographic print : gelatin silver...
    Public domain
  • Roadside view of the house at Ripshin Farm, located on Laurel Creek Road east of Troutdale in Grayson County, Virginia,
    Roadside view of the house at Ripshin Farm, located on Laurel Creek Road east of Troutdale in Grayson County, ...
    Public domain
  • Signature of Sherwood Anderson
    Signature of Sherwood Anderson
    Public domain
  • Photo of author Sherwood Anderson.
    Photo of author Sherwood Anderson.
    Public domain
  • Photo of author Sherwood Anderson.
    Photo of author Sherwood Anderson.
    Public domain
  • Sherwood Anderson, American author
    Sherwood Anderson, American author
    Public domain
  • Photo of author Sherwood Anderson in Central Park
    Photo of author Sherwood Anderson in Central Park
    Public domain
  • Portrait photograph of Sherwood Anderson by Alfred Stieglitz
    Portrait photograph of Sherwood Anderson by Alfred Stieglitz
    Public domain

Further reading

Sources

Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.

Every link goes to the original source. Profile researched 2026-10-15.

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