Yesterday, I posted a sort of guessing game. I provided a list of accomplishments from the life of someone in Emily Dickinson’s inner circle, and I didn’t divulge the person’s name until the end. It was Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and I have to say, I was quite impressed with all he achieved in his life.
Recently, I shared a poem which Dickinson had sent to Doctor J. G. Holland. Dr. Holland and his wife were intimate friends and frequent correspondents with the poet – but who was this “Dr. Holland”?
I really didn’t know much about him, so I ran a quick search – and again, as with Higginson, I was quite impressed.
Recently, I shared a poem which Dickinson had sent to Doctor J. G. Holland. Dr. Holland and his wife were intimate friends and frequent correspondents with the poet – but who was this “Dr. Holland”?
I really didn’t know much about him, so I ran a quick search – and again, as with Higginson, I was quite impressed.
 | Here is some of what I learned: Holland was a novelist, essayist, poet and - according to Wikipedia – the “spiritual mentor to the Nation” in the years following the Civil War. He was "the most successful man of letters in the United States" in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and he sold more books in his lifetime than Mark Twain did in his. Holland penned the first biography of Abraham Lincoln, just months after his assassination, which was a bestseller. Holland's first book was a two-volume History of Western Massachusetts (1855), the first book to feature a poem by a Black woman poet in the U.S. (see the pic below for more info on this). |
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Holland's book (pictured above) can be accessed HERE; the poem is one page 360; and an article about the poem and with the complete text is HERE.
| He also lectured and published under the pseudonym Timothy Titcomb. These writings were oftentimes formatted as letters, offering the public simple, personal, moral guidance and inspiration. He was an editor for The Springfield Republican, and while in that position, he printed a handful of poems Emily Dickinson (all published anonymously). He helped establish and was editor of Scribner's Monthly. He studied medicine at Berkshire Medical College, and later became a practicing physician. He and classmate Dr. Charles Bailey opened a women’s hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts. |  |
In 1851, Edward Dickinson, president of Amherst College, presented Dr. Holland with an honorary master’s degree after which his daughter initiated an intimate friendship with Holland’s wife Elizabeth. Emily sent the couple poems embedded in her letters – it was reported, though, that her husband found Dickinson’s style “too ethereal.”
Holland, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman were born the same year. Holland, as associate editor of The Republican, was critically favorable of Melville; however, as co-founder and editor of Scribner's Monthly, he turned down publishing the more widely read poems of Whitman. He considered Whitman's poetry “immoral.”
Hmm…in April 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson and said this: “You speak of Mr Whitman - I never read his Book - but was told that he was disgraceful.” I wonder who told Dickinson that? ;-)
Finally, here’s a bit of trivia that was completely unexpected: Holland coined a term that later became the word "jazz." Here’s the story:
Holland, Herman Melville and Walt Whitman were born the same year. Holland, as associate editor of The Republican, was critically favorable of Melville; however, as co-founder and editor of Scribner's Monthly, he turned down publishing the more widely read poems of Whitman. He considered Whitman's poetry “immoral.”
Hmm…in April 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson and said this: “You speak of Mr Whitman - I never read his Book - but was told that he was disgraceful.” I wonder who told Dickinson that? ;-)
Finally, here’s a bit of trivia that was completely unexpected: Holland coined a term that later became the word "jazz." Here’s the story:
| The earliest tracing in the Oxford English Dictionary finds that “jasm” first appears in Holland’s 1860 novel, “Miss Gilbert's Career”: “‘She's just like her mother... Oh! she’s just as full of jasm!’.. ‘Now tell me what jasm is.’.. ‘If you'll take thunder and lightening [sic], and a steamboat and a buzz-saw, and mix 'em up, and put 'em into a woman, that's jasm.’” The word was used to describe the "inexpressible personal force of the Yankee,” and morphed into the word “jazz” in the early twentieth century. Isn’t that odd? I explored this a bit and found a few more details HERE. More on Holland can be found HERE. |  |
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