Edmund Clarence Stedman

Edmund Clarence Stedman (October 8, 1833 – January 18, 1908) was an American poet, critic, essayist, banker, and scientist.

Early life Edmund Clarence Stedman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on October 8, 1833; his father, Major Edmund Burke Stedman died of tuberculosis two years later in December 1835. By the following spring, his mother Elizabeth Clementine Stedman moved the boy and his younger brother to Plainfield, New Jersey, to live with her wealthy father, David Low Dodge.

Dodge, a Calvinist and pacifist, was strict, did not want to use his finances to support his grandchildren, and often physically punished the boys for bad behavior. Mrs. Stedman sold poems and stories to magazines including Graham's Magazine, Sartain's Magazine, The Knickerbocker, and Godey's Lady's Book for income. Eventually, the children were taken in by their paternal grandfather, Griffin Stedman, and his brother James in Norwich, Connecticut.

Stedman enrolled in Yale University in 1849 at the age of 16.

In 1904, Edmund Clarence Stedman was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Scientific career

In addition to his literary achievements, Stedman pursued scientific and technical endeavors. In 1879, he proposed a rigid airship inspired by the anatomy of a fish, with a framework of steel, brass, or copper tubing and a tractor propeller mounted on the crafts bow, later changed to an engine with two propellers suspended beneath the framework. The airship never was built, but its design foreshadowed that of the dirigibles of the early decades of the 20th century.

Personal life Stedman married Laura Hyde Woodworth on November 2, 1853.

Stedman died on January 18, 1908, in New York City from heart disease.

Literature

A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895 (1895) William Winter, Old Friends (New York, 1909) An American Anthology, 1787–1900 (Online Edition) Stedman and Mackay, A Library of American Literature (eleven volumes, New York: Charles L. Webster & Co., 1888–90) Stedman and Gould, Life and Letters of Edmund Clarence Stedman (two volumes, New York, 1910)