Edmund Clarence Stedman

Biography

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908) distinguished himself as one of America's leading poets, critics, and bankers, shaping the nation's literary conversation with careful anthologies and incisive essays. He balanced his artistic sensibility with a disciplined business career, lending order to financial institutions by day and nurturing verse by night.

The elegance of his diction and his encouragement of younger writers won him wide regard, and he continued to champion the poetry of the republic even as his own voice matured. Stedman lies in Woodlawn Cemetery, and the literary culture he helped foster lives on in the volumes he curated.