Early years Horace L. Traubel was born in
Camden,
New Jersey on December 19, 1858, the son of an ethnic
Jewish father and an ethnic
German mother. His father, Maurice Traubel, had been born in Germany before emigrating to the United States as a young man, where he settled in
Philadelphia and learned the trade of
lithography. Traubel married in 1891. He and his wife Anne had two children — a daughter who survived him and a son who died at the age of 5.
Career Traubel began to write himself in the late 1880s, specializing in
literary criticism and
poetry. During the years 1903 to 1907 Traubel was associated with another literary magazine,
The Artsman, which he edited along with
William Lightfoot Price and
Hawley McLanahan.
Death and legacy During his last few years Traubel's health failed him. That fall he moved with his wife to stay with a friend in
Norwich, Connecticut, but there his health became steadily worse. In April 1919 Traubel moved to
New York City staying at the apartment of his biographer,
David Karsner. There he suffered a series of debilitating heart attacks from which he never fully recovered. About 1,000 people gathered at the scene, most of whom were present to attend the service, and a quick decision was made to relocate the funeral to the so-called "People's House," home of the
Rand School of Social Science, located at 7 East 15th Street. When the gathering finally reassembled, several of Traubel's poems from
Optimos were read in tribute, with Dr. Percival G. Wiksell of Boston presiding. Traubel was buried in
Harleigh Cemetery in Camden, New Jersey, close to Walt Whitman's tomb. ==Footnotes==