Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (January 26, 1881 – April 26, 1950) was an American academic, activist, caretaker of the historic Longfellow House, and grandson of writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Richard Henry Dana Jr. He was a professor of literature, scholar of Soviet drama, socialist, and pacifist. Columbia University fired him in 1917 for opposing US participation in World War I. He was more or less openly gay, a fact that is generally accepted among historians and biographers.

Early life and education Dana was born on January 26, 1881, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Career Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana (right) with Alice Longfellow (seated at center), circa 1905Pursuing a career in education, Dana taught at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, from 1903 to 1904 and at The Thacher School in Ojai, California, from 1904 to 1906. While completing his doctorate, he was an assistant instructor of comparative literature at Harvard from 1908 to 1910. He was a Lecteur d'Anglais at the Sorbonne from 1910 to 1912. That year, he took up a faculty appointment as instructor of comparative literature at Columbia University in New York City. A pacifist and antiwar activist during World War I, Dana put up bail for three Columbia students charged with "conspiracy to dissuade men from registering" for the military draft. In October 1917, Columbia University fired him, along with psychology professor James McKeen Cattell, for opposing US participation in World War I. Dana went on to serve as part-time lecturer at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1921 to 1932. He also taught drama at the Harvard-affiliated Cambridge School of Drama from 1930 to 1932.

In 1935, Dana was charged with "committing an unnatural act" on the accusation of a 16-year-old boy, whom police had arrested in Concord, Massachusetts, on charges of stealing the car of Dana's nephew, Allston Dana, which had been parked at the Longfellow House. Dana pleaded not guilty, waived his right to a jury trial, and won an acquittal from Judge Nelson P. Brown. In the aftermath of the scandal, Dana had to travel for a year before the trustees of the Longfellow House Trust allowed him to return home full-time.

Dana died of a heart attack at the Longfellow House on April 26, 1950. He was interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.