Nathan C. Brooks

Nathan Covington Brooks (August 12, 1809 – October 6, 1898) was an American educator, historian, and poet. Born in West Nottingham, Cecil County, Maryland, Brooks grew up to become the first principal of Baltimore City College, the third oldest public high school in the United States, and the only president of the Baltimore Female College, the first institution of higher education for women in Maryland. He also was the owner of the literary magazine The American Museum in which he published several works of the writer Edgar Allan Poe, and the author of several textbooks on classical literature. Brooks died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Biography

Nathan Covington Brooks, the youngest son of John and Mary Brooks, was born in West Nottingham, Cecil County, Maryland on August 12, 1809. He began his education at the West Nottingham Academy, and upon graduating enrolled at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. There he received a Master of Arts with his thesis consisting of a poem. After receiving his degree, Brooks began his teaching career at the age of 16 in Charlestown, Cecil County. He held this position for two years before opening a private school in Baltimore, Maryland in 1826, where he remained for five years. In 1831, he was elected principal of the Franklin Academy, located in Reisterstown, Maryland. After three years, Brooks resigned to become principal of the Brookeville Academy in Montgomery County, Maryland. However, in 1836, he resigned from the academy because the school was unable to pay his salary.

In 1839, Brooks was unanimously selected out of a pool of 45 candidates to be the first principal of the new male high school in Baltimore—later renamed the Baltimore City College. While at the Baltimore Female College, Brooks was granted an LL.D. from Emory College in Oxford, Georgia in 1859. He was buried in the family lot at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore.

The American Museum

In 1838, Brooks purchased Summer Lincoln Fairfield's The North American Quarterly and moved the publication from Philadelphia to Baltimore. Brooks partnered with Dr. Joseph E. Snodgrass, a Baltimore physician, to transform the publication into The American Museum of Science, Literature and the Arts. The magazine mainly functioned as a literary publication, featuring literary criticism as well as poetry and short stories.

Brooks, who was a friend of the poet Edgar Allan Poe, published several of Poe's works in The American Museum. Poe's "Ligeia", "A Predicament" (published as "The Scythe of Time"), and "The Haunted Palace" were all originally published in Brooks' magazine. Nevertheless, the magazine was short lived. Only two volumes of the magazine were published and it ceased to exist after 1839. Poe was also critical of Brooks' comic works, while praising his more serious prose.