Robert Haven Schauffler

Robert Haven Schauffler (April 8, 1879 – November 24, 1964) was an American writer, cellist, athlete, and war hero. Schauffler published poetry, biographies of Beethoven, Brahms, and Schumann and a series of books celebrating American holidays.

Early life, family and education Schauffler was born on April 8, 1879 in Brno, where his parents were missionaries. By age two, he was in the US. In 1886, his family founded the Schauffler College of Religious and Social Work in Cleveland, Ohio, for Bohemian immigrants who were interested in social or religious work.

Schauffler was an avid tennis player. He studied cello with several notable musicians. His academic studies started at the Northwestern University, but he completed his degree at Princeton University before going on to study at University in Berlin in 1902–1903.

He came to notice in 1912 when he published a book of poetry named after the poem "Scum o' the Earth". This poem had come to notice after being published in a magazine. The poem had focussed attention on the monetary divide between middle class American and poor immigrants. Schauffler published Arbor Day two years later and there then followed books for Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday and Independence Day. His final holiday books were not published until after the war and there were Armistice Day in 1927, Plays for Our American Holidays in 1928, Halloween in 1933, and Columbus Day, five years later. His books before World War I involved several on travel. He wrote Through Italy with the Poets in 1908, Romantic Germany the following year and in 1913 he published Romantic America.

Personal life Schauffler married before the First World War but his wife, Katharine de Normandie Wilson, died in 1916 and he was a widower for several years. He moved to the Greenbush section of Scituate, Massachusetts, about 1911. He owned property in Scituate from about 1912 to 1919. This was an estate named Arden and included a log cabin studio.

He remarried to Margaret Widdemer who jointly won the Pulitzer Award for Poetry that year in 1919 for her collection The Old Road to Paradise.

Partial list of works

Poetry Scum o' the Earth and Other Poems, 1912 The White Comrade and Other Poems, 1920 Magic Flame and Other Poems, 1923 The poetry cure, a pocket medicine chest of verse, 1925 The poetry cure, with Marion Bauer (1927) The junior poetry cure (1931) New and Selected Poems, 1942

Holiday books Thanksgiving Our American Holidays - Christmas Arbor Day Washington's Birthday (1926) Lincoln's Birthday (1909) Independence Day (1912) Armistice Day Plays for Our American Holidays Halloween Columbus Day Christmas (1907)

Prose The Joyful Heart (1914) Franz Schubert: The Ariel of Music (before 1923) Peter Pantheism (1925) Beethoven: the man who freed music. Vol. 1–2 (1929) Hobnails in Eden. Poems of a Maine vagabond (1929) A manthology; songs that are fit for men, and a few women (1931) The mad musician; an abridgment of Beethoven: the man who freed music (1932) The unknown Brahms (1933) The magic of music, an anthology for music (1935) Florestan, the life and work of Robert Schumann (1945)