Background
Lindsay was born on November 10, 1879, in Springfield, Illinois, United States.
Lindsay was born on November 10, 1879, in Springfield, Illinois, United States.
He entered Hiram College in Ohio, but after three years became dissatisfied with academic routine and enrolled in 1900 in the Chicago Art Institute.
Although he developed an individual style of drawing, he soon turned to poetry. In 1906 Lindsay made the first of several tramping journeys, preaching the gospel of beauty and trading his verses for food and lodging. Returning to Springfield, he strove to awaken his fellow towns men to the claims of beauty, civic righteousness, and poetry.
General William Booth Enters into Heaven (1913) brought Lindsay recognition and initiated a vogue for public recitations by the author. He presented his rhapsodic, visionary, ranting verse with effective showmanship, but his high spirits broke under the strain of work and a growing sense of frustration. The Congo (1914), The Chinese Nightingale (1917), and The Golden Whales of California (1920) represent his talent at its height. In ill health, and depressed by waning creative powers, he committed suicide on Dec. 5, 1931.
(Book by Lindsay, Vachel)
Lindsay had an intention to be an advocate for African-Americans. Lindsay saw himself as anti-racist not only in his own writing but in his encouragement of a writer; he credited himself with discovering Langston Hughes.
In 1925 he married Elizabeth Conner. She bore him daughter Susan Doniphan Lindsay in May 1926 and son Nicholas Cave Lindsay in September 1927.