American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

Herman Melville (August 1, 1819-September 28, 1891) was an American author. He is considered to be one of the world's greatest novelists. In 1841 he had joined the crew of the whaling ship Acushnet, bound for the South Seas, the experiences of which proved invaluable in providing material for his novels. He sailed around Cape Horn, deserted in the Marquesas Islands, was held captive by Polynesian cannibals, escaped on the Australian whaler Lucy Ann, and finally ended up on the Island of Tahiti. He served on the frigate United States from 1843 to 1844, before settling near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1856,...

Josiah Gilbert Holland (July 24, 1819-October 12, 1881) was a founder and editor of the popular Scribner's Monthly (later Century Magazine) and the Springfield Republican. He established the publishing policies of using contributors' names and receiving payment for everything published. A celebrated speaker on social topics and conduct of life, Josiah Gilbert Holland also wrote under the pen name "Timothy Titcomb." His well- read narrative works include the poems Kathrina and Bitter-Sweet. In 1872, Holland wrote in his Gradatim: <Heaven is not reached in a single bound.> 1819JG001 In his work, Wanted, also written in 1872, Josiah Gilbert Holland penned:...

New Hampshire Toleration Act (July 1, 1819): <An Act, in amendment of an Act entitled an Act, for Regulating Towns and the Choice of Town Officers, passed February 8th, Anno Domini 1791,- SECTION 1. Be it enacted...That the inhabitants of each town in this State...may grant...sums of money...for the support of schools, school houses, the maintenance of the poor, for laying out and repairing highways, for building and repairing bridges... SECTION 2. And be it further enacted, That the tenth section of the Act, to which this is an amendment, be and the same is hereby repealed. Provided that towns...

Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819-March 26, 1892) was an American poet. He had worked as a teacher, journalist and printer. He gained renown through his poems, Leaves of Grass, 1855-92. During the Civil War, he nursed wounded soldiers, eventually becoming ill himself. His free- verse poems expressed a democratic idealism, as seen in his Democratic Vistas, 1871. His other works include: Drum Taps, 1865, and Specimen Days, 1882-83. In "Starting from Paumanok," from his Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman wrote: <I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake.... I say that the...

Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819-October 17, 1910) was the author of the Civil War song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which was a favorite of President Abraham Lincoln. She was the daughter of a Wall Street banker, and wife of Doctor Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876), who ran a school for the blind in Boston, (later the Perkins School for the Blind.) Doctor Howe and Julia together published the anti-slavery journal Commonwealth. Julia Ward Howe was very active in the abolition of the slavery movement, and later became a leader in the women's suffrage movement. In 1907, she became the...