Hannibal Hamlin Garland was born on a farm near
West Salem, Wisconsin, on September 14, 1860, the second of four children of Richard Garland of
Maine and Charlotte Isabelle McClintock. The boy was named after
Hannibal Hamlin, the vice-president under
Abraham Lincoln. He lived on various Midwestern farms throughout his young life, but settled in
Boston, Massachusetts, in 1884 to pursue a career in writing. He read diligently in the
Boston Public Library. There he became enamored with the ideas of
Henry George, and his Single Tax Movement. George's ideas came to influence a number of his works, such as
Main-Travelled Roads (1891),
Prairie Folks (1892), and his novel
Jason Edwards (1892).
Main-Travelled Roads was his first major success. It was a collection of short stories inspired by his days on the farm. He serialized a biography of
Ulysses S. Grant in ''
McClure's Magazine before publishing it as a book in 1898. The same year, Garland traveled to the Yukon to witness the Klondike Gold Rush, which inspired The Trail of the Gold Seekers'' (1899). He lived on a farm between
Osage, and
St. Ansgar, Iowa for quite some time. Many of his writings are based on this era of his life. In 1893, Hamlin moved to Chicago, where he lived at 6427 South Greenwood Avenue in the
Woodlawn neighborhood. He is considered "a significant figure in the Chicago Literary Movement" and "one of Chicago's most important authors". In Illinois, Garland married
Zulime Taft, the sister of sculptor
Lorado Taft, and began working as a teacher and a lecturer. A prolific writer, Garland continued to publish novels, short fiction, and essays. In 1917, he published his autobiography,
A Son of the Middle Border. The book's success prompted a sequel,
A Daughter of the Middle Border, for which Garland won the 1922
Pulitzer Prize for Biography. After two more volumes, Garland began a second series of memoirs based on his diary. Garland became quite well known during his lifetime and had many friends in literary circles. He was made a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1918. Garland died at age 79, at his home in Hollywood on March 4, 1940. A memorial service was held three days later near his home in
Glendale, California. His ashes were buried in Neshonoc Cemetery in West Salem, Wisconsin, on March 14; his poem "The Cry of the Age" was read by Reverend John B. Fritz. The
Hamlin Garland House in West Salem was designated as a
National Historic Landmark in 1971. == Works ==