Fred Lewis Pattee

Background

Fred Lewis Pattee was born on March 22, 1863, in Bristol, New Hampshire, United States. He was a son of Lewis Franklin and Mary Philbrick (Ingalls) Pattee.

Education

In 1888 Fred Lewis Pattee received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College and a Master of Arts degree in 1891.

Career

Fred Lewis Pattee began as a printer’s apprentice in Bristol, New Hampshire and looked forward to a career in journalism. At Dartmouth College, Pattee was selected as class poet and wrote a regular column for the Dartmouth Literary Monthly. Pattee, finding it difficult to support himself by writing alone, taught at several area schools from 1886 to 1890, and was principal of Coe’s Northwood Academy for four years. He also worked a variety of odd jobs, including census taker.

Pattee, finding it difficult to support himself by writing alone, taught at several area schools from 1886 to 1890, and was principal of Coe’s Northwood Academy for four years. He also worked a variety of odd jobs, including census taker. Literature in Public Schools, the first of Pattee’s many books, was a pamphlet advocating the teaching of literature in schools. His next two works were a privately published book of poems, The Wine of May and Other Lyrics, and Pasquaney: A Study. Pasquaney was a nostalgic look at his childhood.

In 1894, Pattee became assistant professor of English and Rhetoric at Pennsylvania State College, where he would spend thirty-four years. Disappointed at the quality of students at what was then a technical college, Pattee wrote A History of American Literature, with a View to the Fundamental Principles Underlying Its Development; A Textbook for Schools and Colleges, to rectify the problem. In the book, which became a staple in schools and universities, he argued that literature must be taught in historical context, and that American literature must not be treated as an extension of British literature.

During the next several years, Pattee published frequently, focusing on educational works. He was also superintendent of the college’s Methodist Sunday School and, from 1905 to 1925, campus chaplain. He also started a drama club and a faculty literary club. Pattee also became active as an editor. Eventually, he would also edit the series American Short Stories and Century Readings in the American Short Story. In 1902, he published a novel, Mary’ Garvin; The Story of a New Hampshire Summer. In 1915, he published the first book of what was to be a comprehensive, three- volume history of American literature, which included A History of American Literature Written since 1870 in 1915; he followed this with The New American Literature, 1890-1930, and The First Century' of American Literature, 1770-1870.

Pattee viewed the Civil War as an American literary watershed. Two strands emerged; the Boston Brahmin strand, elitist and patrician, and a more raw, regional strand. Pattee, seeing the Boston strand as oppressive, valued the roughness and variety of the more rural strand. Pattee advocated the more populist literature, the best sellers literary historians generally dismiss, such as Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women.

While Pattee was influential in helping frame American literary tradition, his work also suffers from limitations. He was enamored with romanticism at the expense of realism, which he saw as vulgar and degraded, and classicism. This single mindedness led him to dismiss much that was valuable, and to often overestimate minor authors. It also made him less willing to accept literary development. Pattee also liked to divide literature into categories.

Pattee retired from Pennsylvania State College (now Pennsylvania State University) in 1927. He moved to Florida, where he married second time, and taught for thirteen more years at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. He continued to write and publish, including the second and third volumes of his history of American Literature, and contributed articles to various literary compendiums. He spent his last years in hospitals. His autobiography, Penn State Yankee: The Autobiography of Fred Lewis Pattee, appeared posthumously in 1953.

Achievements

• Fred Lewis Pattee is best remembered for his service at the Pennsylvania State University and the author of Mary Garvin; The Story of a New Hampshire Summer. He had an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Dartmouth and Lebanon Valley College. Pattee Library at the Pennsylvania State University is named after him.

Works

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  • Pasquaney: A Study 1893
  • A History of American Literature, With a View to the Fundamental Principles Underlying Its Development; a Text-Book for Schools and Colleges 1896
  • Reading Courses in American Literature 1897
  • The Foundations of English Literature; A Study of the Development of English Thought and Expression from Beowulf to Milton 1899
  • The House of the Black Ring 1905
  • Elements of Religious Pedagogy, a Course in Sunday School Teacher-Training 1909
  • The Breaking-Point: A Novel 1912
  • Compelled Men 1913
  • A History of American Literature Since 1870 1915
  • Sidelights on American Literature 1922
  • The Development of the American Short Story: An Historical Survey 1923
  • The First Century of American Literature, 1770-1870 1935
  • Penn State Yankee: The Autobiography of Fred Lewis Pattee 1953

Religion

Fred Lewis Pattee's upbringing as a devout Methodist contributed to his disciplined lifestyle.

Connections

On March 9, 1889 Fred Lewis Pattee married Anna L. Plumer. In 1927 she died. In 1928 he married Grace Garee. He had a daughter, Sarah, from his first marriage.

Father:

Lewis Franklin Pattee

Mother:

Mary Philbrick Pattee

Spouse:

Grace Garee

Brother:

Charles Henry Pattee

Sister:

Mary Lou Lord

late spouse:

Orphanna Lura Pattee

Daughter:

Sarah Lewis Pattee

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2010
• Fred Lewis Pattee & American literature
  1973