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Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Thomas Wentworth Higginson was born in Cambridge, MA, on December 23, 1823. He was the youngest child in the family, Louisa Storrow's tenth child and Stephen Higginson's fifteenth. Louisa was Stephen's second wife, but she lived in the Higginson household during the lifetime of his first wife. She took care of the children because Stephen's first wife was a semi-invalid.

Stephen served as the bursar of Harvard College and director of Harvard Divinity School. Thomas did not have much of a memory of his father because he passed away when Thomas was only ten. Thomas attended William Wells school. Higginson then went on to attend Harvard at the age of thirteen in 1837. He graduated second in his class in 1841.

He became interested in Transcendentalism and reform movements, especially abolitionism, that were prominent in New England in the 1830s. Higginson thought that he would like to be a minister in order to address people about reform. In 1843, he started taking graduate courses at Harvard Divinity and finished in 1847.

Higginson married Mary Channing in 1847. The same year he moved to Newburyport, MA and served as a nondenominational minister for the Unitarian First Religious Society. Higginson felt that he was intellectually superior to the seafaring townspeople, and Mary thought she was socially superior. Despite their snobbery, they adjusted to their new home. He was forced to resign his position in 1849, because some members of the congregation found his abolitionist views unacceptable.

He spent three years lecturing in different cities. In 1852, he became pastor of the Free Church in Worcester. He was reluctant to take another pastorate position because of his experience in Newburyport. However, the congregation in Worcester strongly favored abolitionism. Higginson felt very comfortable in Worcester. He became friends with Abby and Stephen Foster, whose farm was a stop of the Underground Railroad, and Lucy Stone, a women's rights activist. Higginson was a founder of the city's Natural History Society and the Worcester Public Library.

Higginson began his literary career in Worcester, and he considered his time in Worcester (1852-1863) crucial to his development as a writer. He edited Thalatta, an anthology of poetry, and an essay entitled "Saints and Their Bodies," which discussed the importance of exercise in order to stay healthy. The essay appeared in the Atlantic Monthly; he published many more articles in the magazine.

In 1853, Mary had a crippling attack of rheumatism. Barbara Channing, a nurse, stayed with Mary while Higginson escorted Stone and Abby Foster to the World's Temperance Convention in New York. When Higginson nominated Susan B. Anthony and then Stone to serve on the committee on credentials, a debate erupted: some of the men present did not feel that women should serve on the committee. Higginson said that if women were barred from participating in the World's Temperance Convention, then it would only be a Half World's Convention. He left and invited people to attend a Whole World's Convention he would hold at the same time. He quickly built himself a national reputation.

On May 26, 1854, Higginson participated in an attack on the Boston Courthouse in order to free a slave, Anthony Burns. A police officer was killed in the attack and Burns was returned to slavery. Higginson was indicted, with many other people, for being involved in the riot. The charges against Higginson were later dropped. He continued abolitionist activities, including participation in assisting Free Soil settlers in Kansas, and supporting John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry.
In 1862, he was chosen to lead the First South Carolina Colored Volunteers, the first regiment of former slaves organized by the Union Army in the Civil War. He served two years before being wounded and discharged in 1864.

Mary had moved to Newport, RI, where her family lived, while her husband was away. After the war, Higginson settled in Newport with his wife, who had started a boardinghouse there. He did not care for Newport or the boardinghouse, but he never thought of going anywhere else.

He continued his writing in Newport. Emily Dickinson sent four poems to Higginson after reading an essay he wrote, "A Letter to a Young Contributor," in the Atlantic Monthly, which was meant to encourage aspiring writers. Higginson and Dickinson corresponded until her death in 1886. In 1890, the Dickinson family asked Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd to edit Dickinson's poems. They agreed and added titles to her poems and corrected her grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. Higginson was criticized by some for making those changes, but other nineteenth-century editors probably would have made similar changes.

Army Life in a Black Regiment, which combines military history and personal experience, was published in 1870. Higginson hoped to correct what he viewed as Northern misconceptions about freed slaves by sharing his stories of their performance as soldiers.

When his wife died in 1877, he returned to Cambridge and remarried. He married Mary Thacher of Newton, MA in 1879. Their daughter, Margaret, was born in 1880. During the 1880s Higginson served in the state legislature. He fought for civil service reform and encouraged religious and cultural pluralism and tolerance.

Higginson continued to write essays, biographies and historical works. His nature essays presented scientific facts in a fashionable literary style. The biographical sketches of New England reformers he knew give unique perspectives on their subjects. His biographical writing was best when he knew the person or had experienced the event. Margaret Fuller Ossoli, published in 1884, is considered his best biography, because of his personal acquaintance with her and the use of unpublished manuscript sources.

Despite his old age, Higginson and his family traveled through Europe in 1901. Upon his return he had lost weight and was in poor health. Higginson and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) met in 1905 through the Dublin society and became good friends. He continued to write until his death on May 9, 1911. Decades after his death he was known mainly for editing Emily Dickinson's poems. In the 1960s, when reform movements attracted more attention in that turbulent decade again, his works were given more serious study.