Thus Whittier began a long career as contributing editor, essayist, and poet. A deeply religious man, Whittier followed the Quaker faith of his parents and is often called the Quaker poet. As a Quaker deeply concerned with politics and social welfare, he served in the Massachusetts legislature, was founder of the Liberty party in 1839, and participated in the founding of the Republican Party in 1854. For more than 30 years, Whittier devoted himself to the abolition of slavery in the United States.
2. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) - American poet, one of the most popular and celebrated poets of his time. Born in Portland, Maine (then in Massachusetts), Longfellow was educated at Bowdoin College. After graduating in 1825 he traveled in Europe in preparation for a teaching career. He taught modern languages at Bowdoin from 1829 to 1835. In late 1835, during a second trip to Europe, Longfellow's wife, Mary Storer Potter, died in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Longfellow returned to the United States in 1836 and began teaching at Harvard University. In 1843 he remarried, to Fanny Appleton. After retiring from Harvard in 1854, Longfellow devoted himself exclusively to writing. He was devastated when in 1861 his second wife was burned to death in a household accident. He commemorated her shortly before his own death with the sonnet "The Cross of Snow" (1879). In 1884 a bust of Longfellow was placed in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey in London; he was the first American to be thus honored.
3. William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) - American poet and journalist, born in Cummington, Massachusetts, and trained in law. Bryant wrote his finest poetry in his youth. The first draft of "Thanatopsis," his most famous poem, was written when he was 16 years of age, and he was only 27 years old when his first published volume, Poems, appeared in 1821. Poems included, in addition to "Thanatopsis,", "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," "Green River," and "To a Waterfowl.
