W. D. Howells in the News
News items featuring W. D. Howells.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
From Newsday:
It was called "The Easy Chair," but it was more like a bully pulpit.
From this prestigious platform, George William Curtis skewered opponents of women's suffrage in the 1880s. A decade later, William Dean Howells championed a new realism in American fiction.
John Fischer chided TV executives of the 1950s for their dedication to "making Americans fat, dumb and happy." In the 1960s Willie Morris urged his fellow Southerners to abandon segregation.
These were some of the celebrated editors of Harper's, the nation's oldest continuously published magazine, founded in 1850. The column titled "The Easy Chair" was their much- prized perk, assuring the occupant a powerful voice in the public arena.
