James Russell Lowell Was a Lawyer Who Found More Success As a Poet, Scholar, and Ambassador Than He Did in Practicing Law

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James Russell Lowell was a lawyer who found more success as a poet, scholar, and ambassador than he did in practicing law. He was born on February 22, 1819, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His family was financially comfortable, and James received a good education as a boy. He was already recognized as a promising young poet when he attended Harvard and received his law degree.

The law could not hold his heart the way literature did, and his wife, who was also a poet, encouraged him to pursue his writing talents. In 1845, the year after he married Maria White, he published a collection of essays that discussed many topics, including the abolition of slavery. He continued to write in opposition of slavery for several years.

By 1853, he had published several books. But life was very difficult. Three of his four children had died, and in 1853, his wife Maria also died. Still, he kept writing, and in 1855 he was appointed professor of modern languages at Harvard, a job that had been previously held by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. James remarried in 1857.

James Russell Lowell is remembered as a man who never stopped reading and never stopped learning. He traveled to Europe and studied language. He worked as an editor of the Atlantic Monthly. After the Civil War, he wrote odes to the Union. He became frustrated by things he did not agree with in President Grant’s leadership of the nation and used his writing to remind people of the ideals he felt were missing from the presidency at that time.

In 1870 and 1876, he published Among My Books, a series of critical essays about influential authors of the past. President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him ambassador to Spain and then to Great Britain. When his second wife died in 1885, he left public life. He died on August 12, 1891.

On the following pages you will find a timeline of James Russell Lowell’s life and a notebooking page. Do some research into the life and work of James Russell Lowell and record your observations as you look more closely at the life of this famous author.

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James Russell Lowell

Timeline

James Russell Lowell was born 1819

1844

1845 1848 1848 1853 1857 1857 1877-1880 1880-1885 1891

Poem A Fable for Critics published

Editorship of the new Atlantic Monthly

Married the poet Maria White

Ambassador to Great Britain

Married Frances Dunlap

Published Conversations on Some of the Old Poets

Died in Cambridge, Mass.

Appointed minister to Spain

Poem The Vision of Sir Launfal published

Answer Key James Russell Lowell

Timeline

James Russell Lowell was born 1819

1844 Married the poet Maria White

Published Conversations on Some of the Old Poets 1845 Poem The Vision of Sir Launfal 1848 published

Poem A Fable for Critics published 1848

1853 Wife died

Married Frances Dunlap 1857

1857 Editorship of the new Atlantic Monthly

Appointed minister to Spain 1877-1880 1880-1885 Ambassador to Great Britain

Died in Cambridge, Mass. 1891