William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells

Novelist, critic and editor of the Atlantic Monthly (1871-1881), raised in a family of Ohio printers, who learned his trade in Hamilton, Columbus and Jefferson and wrote Lincoln's 1860 campaign biography in Columbus.

Born March 1, 1837, Martinsville (now Martins Ferry)
Died May 11, 1920, Manhattan, New York City

Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born: March 1, 1837, Martinsville (now Martins Ferry) (Belmont County) source
Died: May 11, 1920, Manhattan, New York City source
Buried: Cambridge Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts source
Also known as: W. D. Howells, The Dean of American Letters
Known as: Writer

Life story

William Dean Howells was born in Martins Ferry in 1837, the second of eight children of a printer and newspaper editor. The family lived longest in Hamilton, Ohio, from 1840 to 1849.

He began as a printer and newspaper writer, published his first poem in 1852, clerked in the Ohio House in 1856 and worked at the Ohio State Journal. A Lincoln campaign biography in 1860 won him the consul post at Venice.

Back in the US he settled in Massachusetts, edited The Atlantic Monthly (1871-1881) and wrote realist novels such as The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885). He promoted writers including Stephen Crane and Paul Laurence Dunbar.

He died in New York in 1920.

Ohio ties

Martinsville (now Martins Ferry) (1837-1840)
birthplace, a small brick house near the Ohio River Belmont County · source
Hamilton (1840-1848)
boyhood town of A Boy's Town; his father owned the Whig Hamilton Intelligencer Butler County · source
Dayton (1848-1850)
his father bought the Dayton Transcript, which failed Montgomery County · source
Eureka Mills, on the Little Miami River twelve miles east of Dayton (about 1850-1851)
the family's "year in a log cabin" while his father ran a grist mill and sawmill Greene County · source
Columbus (1851-1852)
compositor at the Ohio State Journal at $4 a week while his father reported the legislature Franklin County · source
Ashtabula and Jefferson (1852-1856 and summers after)
printer and writer on the family's Ashtabula Sentinel, moved to Jefferson in January 1853 Ashtabula County · source
Columbus (1856-1861)
legislative correspondent for the Cincinnati Gazette and Cleveland Herald, then on the Ohio State Journal's editorial staff; roomed in the old Medical College on State Street 1857-1860 Franklin County · source

Timeline

1837 Born March 1 in Martinsville (renamed Martins Ferry in 1865), the second of eight children of William Cooper Howells and Mary Dean Howells. source
1840 His father bought the Hamilton Intelligencer, the Whig paper of Butler County, and the family moved to Hamilton. source
1848 His father refused to back the Whig nominee Zachary Taylor, joined the Free Soil movement, sold the Intelligencer and bought the Dayton Transcript, which failed. source
1850 The family moved to a mill property on the Little Miami River, where his father and uncles planned a paper mill and a cooperative settlement; the family left for Columbus late in 1851. source
1851 Arrived in Columbus about the time Louis Kossuth reached Washington; set type for the Ohio State Journal at $4 a week while his father reported the legislature for $10. source
1852 His father became a partner in the Ashtabula Sentinel on May 15; the next January he and James L. Oliver bought it and moved it to Jefferson. source
1856 Went to Columbus with his father, newly a clerk of the Ohio House, and wrote legislative letters for the Cincinnati Gazette. source
1857 After the session the Gazette offered him its city editorship in Cincinnati at twice his correspondent's pay; he later turned the job down. source
1858 Joined the Ohio State Journal, writing poems and stories and translating from French, Spanish and German; the state marker says he became its city editor. source
1860 Columbus publisher Follett, Foster and Co. issued his campaign Life of Abraham Lincoln; the post of U.S. consul in Venice (1861-1865) followed. source
1871 Became editor of The Atlantic Monthly, serving until 1881. source
1885 Published The Rise of Silas Lapham and began the "Editor's Study" column in Harper's. source
1890 Published A Boy's Town, his account of growing up in Hamilton. source
1904 Was one of the first seven members chosen for the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which he later led as president. source
1917 Harper & Brothers published Years of My Youth, his memoir of Ohio to 1861, illustrated with photographs Clifton Johnson took of the Ohio places. source
1920 Died May 11 in Manhattan; cremated and buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts. source

What William is known for

The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)
Longtime editor of the Atlantic Monthly
Their Wedding Journey (1872)
A Modern Instance (1882)
The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885)
A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889)
A Traveler from Altruria (1894)

Stories

The biography he would not go to Springfield for

In 1860 Howells, 23 and working in Columbus, was asked by his friend, the publisher Follett, Foster and Co., to write a campaign life of the new Republican nominee, Abraham Lincoln. The plan was for him to go to Springfield and interview Lincoln and his neighbors, but Howells could not face playing interviewer and refused. A young law student he knew went instead and brought back a small sheaf of notes, from which Howells wrote the book. He later called it the greatest chance of his life missed, and in Years of My Youth wrote that he had heard Lincoln annotated a copy that was still somewhere in the West. That copy survives: its owner, Samuel C. Parks, wrote in 1901 that Lincoln corrected it for him in pencil in the summer of 1860, and the Abraham Lincoln Association printed a facsimile in 1938.

Source

Setting type at the State Journal

The Howells family reached Columbus late in 1851, when Howells was 14. His father reported the legislature in longhand for the Ohio State Journal, then the Whig paper, at ten dollars a week; the boy worked in the same office as a compositor for four dollars, first on the newspaper and then setting House and Senate bills. The family rented a small brick house from a Welsh carpenter for ten dollars a month. When the legislature adjourned, both jobs ended, and the family took the new railroad to Cleveland and on to Ashtabula, where his father had bought into the Free Soil Sentinel. Howells came back to Columbus five years later as a legislative correspondent and stayed until he left for Venice.

Source

The editor's father

William Cooper Howells, born in Wales in 1807, reached Jefferson County, Ohio, with his family in 1813 and spent his working life as a printer and editor. He sold his Hamilton Whig paper in 1848 rather than support Zachary Taylor, failed with the Dayton Transcript, and in 1852 bought into the Ashtabula Sentinel, which he moved to Jefferson. He held legislative posts from 1856 to 1865 and, as a state senator, introduced the joint resolution by which Ohio ratified the Thirteenth Amendment, the honor he said he valued most. In 1874 he became U.S. consul at Quebec, still writing weekly letters to the Sentinel. His eldest son, Joseph, ran the paper in Jefferson, and his second son was by then editing the Atlantic Monthly.

Source

Honors and things named for them

First seven-member American Academy of Arts and Letters, later its president (1904)

Family

father: William Cooper Howells
spouse: Elinor Mead Howells

Sites to know

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

1 Ohio Historical Marker 12-7, William Dean Howells / Poet James Arlington Wright (City Park)
Martins Ferry, near 10 S. Monument Avenue Belmont County · source
Birthplace site, a small brick house by the Ohio River (gone by 1916) (demolished)
Martins Ferry, riverfront Belmont County · source
2 Ohio Historical Marker 12-9, William Dean Howells (at the Historic Log Cabin; temporarily down in February 2025) (unknown)
Hamilton, S. Monument Street between High and Court Streets Butler County · source
3 Ohio Statehouse, where he and his father reported the legislature
Columbus, 1 Capitol Square Franklin County · source
Old Medical College on State Street, where he roomed 1857-1860 (unknown)
Columbus, State Street Franklin County · source
Site of Eureka Mills and the family's log cabin, Little Miami River (demolished)
twelve miles east of Dayton Greene County · source
Ashtabula Sentinel office built by his father (unknown)
Jefferson Ashtabula County · source
Grave of his brother Joseph A. Howells, marked with the Sentinel's imposing stone and an inscription by W. D. Howells
Jefferson cemetery Ashtabula County · source

Ohio places

Where William Dean Howells was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Born: Martins Ferry, Belmont County ZIP 43935 · Martins Ferry · Belmont County
Lived: Hamilton, Butler County ZIP 45011 · Hamilton · Butler County

Myths and corrections

Things often said about William Dean Howells, and what the record shows.

Often said Howells was elected clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives in 1856 (as Wikipedia states).

The record In his memoir Howells says it was his father, William Cooper Howells, who was chosen a House clerk; the son, then 19, went to Columbus with him in 1856 as a legislative correspondent for the Cincinnati Gazette. The 1878 Ashtabula County history likewise has the father serving as journal clerk from 1856. source

Documents

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

Years of My Youth (Harper & Brothers, 1917), Howells's memoir of his Ohio years (Project Gutenberg #47060) 1917, Project Gutenberg
A Boy's Town, his account of boyhood in Hamilton (Project Gutenberg #28727) 1890, Project Gutenberg
My Year in a Log Cabin, on the Little Miami mill episode (Project Gutenberg #57341) 1893, Project Gutenberg
Stories of Ohio (Project Gutenberg #21381) 1897, Project Gutenberg
Lives and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin (Columbus: Follett, Foster and Co., 1860), with Howells's Life of Lincoln 1860, Internet Archive
Life of Abraham Lincoln: facsimile of Samuel C. Parks's copy with Lincoln's pencil corrections (Abraham Lincoln Association, 1938) 1938, Internet Archive (University of Illinois copy)
History of Ashtabula County, Ohio (Williams Brothers, 1878), with the biography of William Cooper Howells and the history of the Ashtabula Sentinel 1878, Internet Archive

Pictures

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

Louisburg Square, Boston, Massachusetts
Public domain
Louisburg Square, Boston, Massachusetts
Public domain
Louisburg Square, Boston, Massachusetts
Public domain
Louisburg Square, Boston, Massachusetts
Public domain
Oliver Herford, An alphabet of celebrities - H
Public domain
From the scrapbook of favourite news clippings relating to the life and times of J.H.Greene, a close friend of...
Public domain
Caricature of William Dean Howells
Public domain
Four Distinguished Literary Americans; W. D. Howells, Mark Twain, Henry M. Alden, Mayo W. Hazeltine. From a ph...
Public domain
No known restrictions
This is William Dean Howells older brother Joseph Howells, circa 1910. This image was left to me in a collecti...
Public domain
Public domain
Portrait drawing of William Dean Howells.
Public domain