James Whitcomb RILEY

1. James Whitcomb RILEY By: Allison Rose Stogsdill

2. Childhood • Born October 2, 1849 • Born in Greenfield, Indiana • Loved to read as a kid • Zachary Taylor was President • Already starting to write

3. Family • Mother wrote poems published in a Hancock newspaper. • She died two years before he became a sign painter. • His dad, attorney Reuben Riley was Greenfield’s first mayor. • Dad also left to serve as a captain in the Civil War, he survived • Riley was eleven.

4. How Riley Became Famous • Started as a painter and traveled with medicine. • Also entertained crowds that came to the wagon. • Writing got him a job on the Anderson Democrat news paper in 1877. • “Poe poem” was published across the country by excited newspaper editors • Still entertained audiences with his poetry and stories.

5. Awards and Honors • Bill Nye one of his admirers began a joint tour and were signed by a booking agent about a year later. • Awarded degrees such as Yale, Penn, Indiana University, and Wabash College. • He was united to the White House by Mrs. Grover Cleveland. • Rudyard Kipling dedicated a poem to Riley. • All of his recitals were in Indiana.

6. Death • Often those closest to him realized he was lonely and ill at the heart . • On Riley’s sixty-sixth birthday 1915 President Wilson paid tribute. • Nine months later he died. • He died at the Lockerbie house. • Very few American poets ever been as celebrated as Riley. • If Riley had done nothing else he introduced poetry to thousands of people otherwise never have read a verse.