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Wheatley, Phillis
by Jenny Liou and Claire Morgan (2022) WHEATLEY, PHILLIS (c. 1753-1784). Phillis Wheatley was the first African American, and one of the first women, to publish a book of poetry in the American colonies. As is the case with many enslaved people, very few facts of Wheatley’s life before her enslavement can be verified. Many…
Read MoreWouk, Herman
by Laurence W. Mazzeno (2000) WOUK, HERMAN (1915-2019). Herman Wouk, author of the best-selling sea novel The Caine Mutiny (1951) and other works about the navy in World War II, was born in New York City, eldest son of Russian Jewish immigrants. Educated at Columbia University, Wouk spent the years before World War II working in…
Read MoreWoolson, Constance Fenimore
by Victoria Brehm (2000) WOOLSON, CONSTANCE FENIMORE (1840-1894). One of the first American realists, Constance Fenimore Woolson began her career writing about the Great Lakes, including an early story, “Margaret Morris” (1872), which is the first shipwreck fiction of the Lakes. She set more than a dozen stories on islands or in frontier settlements, most…
Read MoreWilson, Sloan
by Robert Shenk (2000) WILSON, SLOAN (1920-2003). Sloan Wilson was a Coast Guard officer before he became a novelist and a yachtsman before he gained a commission in the Coast Guard. He came to regard his Coast Guard experience as more educative than his B.A. from Harvard; the latter two of the three novels that…
Read MoreWilson, Gilbert
by Elizabeth Schultz (2000) WILSON, GILBERT [BROWN] (1907-1991). Having studied in the 1930s to be a muralist, from the 1940s through the 1960s Gilbert Wilson worked in diverse media to interpret Moby-Dick (1851) visually, with the intention of bringing Herman Melville’s novel to the attention of the American common people. In the early 1940s, while…
Read MoreWilson, August
by Sarah Dohan (2016) WILSON, AUGUST (1945-2005). August Wilson, a prominent American playwright, was born Frederick August Kittel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on April 27, 1945 to Frederick Kittel, a German baker, and Daisy Wilson Kittel, an African American cleaning woman. Born the fourth of six children, he grew up in a crowded two-bedroom apartment behind…
Read MoreWilliams, William Carlos
by Robert E. Kibler (2000) WILLIAMS, WILLIAM CARLOS (1883-1963). Although modern poet, novelist, and essayist William Carlos Williams once said that all of his art came out of the work-yard of his lifelong home in Rutherford, New Jersey, where he practiced medicine, that is not altogether true. He also traveled upon, and wrote about, the…
Read MoreWilliams, Tennessee
by Felicia Hardison Londre (2000) WILLIAMS, TENNESSEE [THOMAS LANIER] (1911-1983). Winner of four New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards and two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays, Tennessee Williams is most identified with the American South. He was born in Mississippi and spent his early childhood there until the family settled in St. Louis in 1918.…
Read MoreWilliams, Ben Ames
All the Brothers Were Valiant (1919)
Read MoreWilkes, Charles
by Jason Smith (2013) WILKES, CHARLES (1798-1877). Charles Wilkes was an American naval officer, hydrographer, and writer. He commanded the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838 to 1842, wrote its five-volume Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition (1844), edited the expedition’s eighteen scientific volumes, and wrote the last of these, Hydrography (1861). He is also known…
Read MoreWhittier, John Greenleaf
by R. D. Madison (2000) WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF (1807-1892). A Quaker abolitionist and poet, John Greenleaf Whittier epitomizes the poet of rural life. With his New England contemporaries, however, he had little relish for straying far from the reach of the sea breeze. Sea motifs and imagery enter his earliest poetry from unexpected sources, such as…
Read MoreWhitman, Walt
by Philip A. Greasley (2000) WHITMAN, WALT[ER] (1819-1892). Walt Whitman was born in West Hills, near Huntington on northwestern Long Island. With almost two centuries of ancestral residence on the island and some seafaring tradition in his family, Whitman was naturally attuned to the ocean and its related occupations. Not until 1848 did he venture for…
Read MoreWhite, E. B.
by Hillary Frey and Mira Dock (2000) WHITE, E[LWYN]. B[ROOKS]. (1899-1983). Best known for his articles in The New Yorker and his children’s books, E. B. White reflected significantly upon his relationship with the sea in two important essays, “The Years of Wonder” and “The Sea and the Wind That Blows.” The first, written on…
Read MoreWheatley, Phillis
This entry is currently under construction (August 2022). Click here for more information. by Jenny Liou and Claire Morgan (2022) WHEATLEY, PHILLIS (c. 1753-1784). Phillis Wheatley was the first African American, and one of the first women, to publish a book of poetry in the American colonies. As is the case with many enslaved people, very…
Read MoreWarner, William W.
by Brian Anderson (2000) WARNER, WILLIAM W[HITESIDES]. (1920-2008). Naturalist-author William W. Warner was born in New York City. From 1944 to 1946, he served in the U.S. Navy, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant, junior grade, and was awarded a Navy Commendation Medal. Warner is primarily known for his nonfiction work Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen,…
Read MoreWalcott, Derek
by Jill B. Gidmark (2000) WALCOTT, DEREK [ALTON] (1930-2017). Winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in literature, Derek Walcott identifies in his life and work two primary inspirations: the Caribbean Sea and his mixed-race heritage. Born and raised in the harbor city of Castries, St. Lucia, grandson of two white men and two black women, Walcott…
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