Literature

Noted author Edith Wharton died on August 11, 1937. Best known for her novel The Age of Innocence, she was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was born on August 8, 1896, in Washington, DC. She’s best-known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Yearling, which was later made into a movie.

On July 22, 1893, Katharine Lee Bates wrote America the Beautiful. It has since become one of America’s most beloved patriotic songs, and has often been proposed to become our national anthem.

Author Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. Hemingway is considered one of America’s great 20th century novelists, inspiring a generation of writers with his understated, minimal prose.

Journalist and writer John Hersey was born on June 17, 1914, in Tientsin, China. He accompanied the Army on several operations in World War II and is best remembered for his collection of stories from survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Anthropologist Ruth Fulton Benedict was born on June 5, 1887, in New York City, New York. Benedict developed her own theories on culture and conducted special research for the US government during World War II.

On June 3, 1888, the now-famous poem “Casey at the Bat” was first published in the San Francisco Daily Examiner. It’s been performed and recorded thousands of times and adapted to several other media, become the most famous baseball poem in history.

On May 23, 1895, the New York Public Library was established. Exactly 16 years later, on May 23, 1911, the main branch of the library opened its doors to the public. Today, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the country and the fourth largest in the world.

On May 3, 1915, Canadian physician John McCrae penned the poem, “In Flanders Fields,” in honor of a fallen fellow soldier following the Second Battle of Ypres. The poem became a rallying cry among Allied nations to continue fighting and support the war effort.