Thomas Nelson Page (April 23, 1853 – November 1, 1922) was an American
lawyer
A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...
, politician, and
writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
. He served as the
U.S. ambassador to Italy from 1913 to 1919 under the administration of President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
In his writing, Page popularized
Plantation tradition
Plantation tradition is a genre of literature based in the Southern United States that is heavily nostalgic for antebellum times. The ideology is that of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, though this specific genre is often called "The Plantation ...
literature which was used to promote the
Lost Cause
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (or simply Lost Cause) is an American pseudohistorical negationist mythology that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. Firs ...
myth across the
New South
New South, New South Democracy or New South Creed is a slogan in the history of the American South first used after the American Civil War. Reformers used it to call for a modernization of society and attitudes, to integrate more fully with the ...
. Page first got the public's attention with his story "Marse Chan" which was published in the ''
Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine''. Page's most notable works include ''The Burial of the Guns'' and ''In Ole Virginia.''
Life and career
![Thomas Nelson Page 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Thomas_Nelson_Page_2.jpg)
Page was born in one of the Nelson family's plantations in
Oakland
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...
, near the village of
Beaverdam in
Hanover County, Virginia
Hanover County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 109,979. Its county seat is Hanover Courthouse.
Hanover County is a part of the Greater Richmond Region.
History
Located in the wester ...
. He was the son to John Page, a lawyer and a plantation owner, and Elizabeth Burwell (Nelson). He was a scion of the prominent Nelson and Page families, each
First Families of Virginia
First Families of Virginia (FFV) were those families in Colonial Virginia who were socially prominent and wealthy, but not necessarily the earliest settlers. They descended from English colonists who primarily settled at Jamestown, Williamsburg ...
.
Although he was from once-wealthy lineage, after the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, which began when he was only 8 years old, his parents and their relatives were largely impoverished during
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
and his teenage years.
In 1869, he entered Washington College, known now as
Washington and Lee University
, mottoeng = "Not Unmindful of the Future"
, established =
, type = Private liberal arts university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.092 billion (2021)
, president = William C. Dudley
, provost = Lena Hill
, city = Lexingto ...
, in
Lexington, Virginia
Lexington is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 7,320. It is the county seat of Rockbridge County, although the two are separate jurisdictions. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines ...
when
Robert E. Lee was president of the college. In Page's later literary works, Robert E. Lee would come to serve as the model figure of Southern Heroism. Page left Washington College before graduation for financial reasons after three years, but continued to desire an education specifically in law. To earn money to pay for his degree, Page tutored the children of his cousins in Kentucky. From 1873 to 1874, he was enrolled in the law school of the
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
. At Washington College and thereafter at UVA, Nelson was a member of the fraternity of Delta Psi, (St. Anthony Hall).
Career
Admitted to the
Virginia Bar Association
The Virginia Bar Association (VBA) is a voluntary organization of lawyers, judges and law school faculty and students in Virginia, with offices in Richmond, Virginia. Key elements are advocacy, professionalism, service and collegiality. It provi ...
, he practiced as a lawyer in
Richmond
Richmond most often refers to:
* Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States
* Richmond, London, a part of London
* Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England
* Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada
* Richmond, California, ...
between 1876 and 1893, and also began his writing career. In 1893, Page, who had become disillusioned with the Southern legal system, gave up his practice entirely and moved with his wife to Washington, D.C.
There, he wrote eighteen books that were compiled and published in 1912. Page popularized the
plantation tradition
Plantation tradition is a genre of literature based in the Southern United States that is heavily nostalgic for antebellum times. The ideology is that of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, though this specific genre is often called "The Plantation ...
genre of Southern writing, which told of an idealized version of life before the Civil War, with contented slaves working for beloved masters and their families. Page viewed the Antebellum South as a representation of moral purity, and often vilified the reforms of the
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Weste ...
as a sign of moral decline.
His 1887 collection of short stories, ''
In Ole Virginia
IN, In or in may refer to:
Places
* India (country code IN)
* Indiana, United States (postal code IN)
* Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN)
* In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Businesses and organizations
* Independ ...
'', is Page's quintessential work, providing a depiction of the Antebellum South. His most well-known short-story from that collection was "Marse Chan". "Marse Chan" was popularized because of Page's ability to capture southern dialect. Another short-story collection of his is entitled ''The Burial of the Guns'' (1894). As a result of his literary success, Page was popular amongst the Capital elite, and was regularly invited to socialize with politicians from around the country.
[Dauer, Richard Paul. "Thomas Nelson Page, Diplomat" (MA, College of William and Mary, 1972)] During the first quarter of the 20th century, he founded a library in the
Sycamore Tavern
Sycamore Tavern, also known as Shelburn's Tavern and Florence L. Page Memorial Library, is a historic inn and tavern located near Montpelier, Hanover County, Virginia. It was built before 1804, and is a 1 1/2-story, three bay by two bay, frame s ...
structure near
Montpelier, Virginia, in memory of his wife, Florence Lathrop Page.
Under President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
, Page was appointed as
U.S. ambassador to Italy for six years between 1913 and 1919. There he supported the
Czechoslovak Legion in Italy
The Czechoslovak Italian Legion was a legion of Czechoslovak volunteers formed late in World War I. The first formal Czechoslovak Volunteers Group ( cs, Československý dobrovolnický sbor) was formed in Italian prisoner-of-war camps in Santa Ma ...
. Despite being untrained in Italian and having little experience in governmental affairs, Page was determined to do a good job. He eventually learned Italian, formed beneficial relationships with Italian government officials, and accurately reported on the Italian state during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
.
Page managed to maintain and improve American-Italian relations during World War I, and provided a sympathetic ear to the Italian and
Triple Entente
The Triple Entente (from French '' entente'' meaning "friendship, understanding, agreement") describes the informal understanding between the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as well a ...
cause in the U.S government. After a disagreement with President Wilson over the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...
, in which he argued for increased Italian benefits, Page resigned his post in 1919. His book entitled ''
Italy and the World War'' (1920) is a memoir of his service there.
After returning to his home in Oakland, Virginia, Page continued to write for the remainder of his years.
Writing themes
![Thomas Nelson Page in 1916](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Thomas_Nelson_Page_in_1916.jpg)
Page's
postbellum
may refer to:
* Any post-war period or era
* Post-war period following the American Civil War (1861–1865); nearly synonymous to Reconstruction era (1863–1877)
* Post-war period in Peru following its defeat at the War of the Pacific (1879†...
fiction featured a nostalgic view of the South in step with what is termed
Lost Cause
The Lost Cause of the Confederacy (or simply Lost Cause) is an American pseudohistorical negationist mythology that claims the cause of the Confederate States during the American Civil War was just, heroic, and not centered on slavery. Firs ...
ideology. Twisting the historical reality of
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
, enslaved people are depicted as faithful, happy and simple, slotted into a paternalistic society. For example, the formerly enslaved person in "Marse Chan" is uneducated, speaks phonetically, and has unrelenting admiration for his former master. The gentry are noble and principled, with fealty to country and to chivalry—they seem like knights of a different age. The strain epitomized by Page would carry through the postwar era, cropping up again in art with films like ''
The Birth of a Nation
''The Birth of a Nation'', originally called ''The Clansman'', is a 1915 American silent epic drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. The screenplay is adapted from Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel and play ''The Cla ...
''. The ideology and thoughts that appear in Page's writing and in Southern ideology are no mere simplistic, archaic world-view; they are part of a complex history that has informed, for worse and for better, the evolution of the Southern mind to 1940.
Thomas Nelson Page lamented that the slavery-era "good old darkies" had been replaced by the "new issue" (Blacks born after slavery) whom he described as "lazy, thriftless, intemperate, insolent, dishonest, and without the most rudimentary elements of morality" (pp. 80, 163). Page, who helped popularize the images of cheerful and devoted Mammies and Sambos in his early books, became one of the first writers to introduce a literary black brute.
In 1898 he published ''Red Rock'', a
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*'' Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Unio ...
novel, with the heinous figure of Moses, a loathsome and sinister Black politician. Moses tried to rape a white woman: "He gave a snarl of rage and sprang at her like a wild beast" (pp. 356–358). The depiction of rape using animal metaphors was a common feature of American
sentimental literature. He was later lynched for "a terrible crime".
Page dealt with the morality of
lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
by acquitting the mob from any guilt, holding, instead, the supposedly debased Blacks responsible for their own violent executions. In his 1904 essay, ''The Negro: The Southerner's Problem'', he wrote:
Likewise, Thomas Nelson Page complained that African American leaders should cease "talk of social equality that inflames the ignorant Negro,"
[Page (1904), p. 111.] and instead, work to stop "the crime of ravishing and murdering women and children."
Reception and criticism
Thomas Nelson Page was one of the best-known writers of his day. He served as Woodrow Wilson's ambassador to Italy, and the president referred to him as a "national ornament".
In her effort to control the image of slavery and Civil War in the American mind,
Mildred Lewis Rutherford
Mildred Lewis "Miss Millie" Rutherford (July 16, 1851 – August 15, 1928) was a prominent white supremacist educator and author from Athens, Georgia. She served the Lucy Cobb Institute, as its head and in other capacities, for over forty years, ...
, historian general of the
United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...
from 1911 to 1916, urged that "no library should be without…all of Thomas Nelson Page's books".
[Cited according to: ]
Modern historian
David W. Blight
David William Blight (born 1949) is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Previousl ...
calls it "America's national tragedy" that American memory was informed by the "romantic fantasies" of writers like Page and
Joel Chandler Harris
Joel Chandler Harris (December 9, 1848 – July 3, 1908) was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a planta ...
, while the authentic memories of former slaves were largely forgotten.
He approvingly cites
Sterling A. Brown
Sterling Allen Brown (May 1, 1901 – January 13, 1989) was an American professor, folklorist, poet, and literary critic. He chiefly studied black culture of the Southern United States and was a professor at Howard University for most of his caree ...
's ironical criticism: "Thomas Nelson Page was not lying in his eulogy of the mammy…Page's feeling is honest if child-like. I am sure that he loved his mammy to death."
Personal life
He was married to Anne Seddon Bruce on July 28, 1886. She died on December 21, 1888 of a throat hemorrhage. He remarried on June 6, 1893, to
Florence Lathrop Field, a widowed sister-in-law of retailer
Marshall Field
Marshall Field (August 18, 1834January 16, 1906) was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores. His business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of quality and customer ...
(her husband
Henry Field had died less than three years earlier). Page's second wife Florence was a member of the prestigious
Barbour family
The Barbour family is a prominent American political family of Scottish origin from Virginia. The progenitor of the Barbour family was James Barbour, who emigrated to Virginia from Scotland in the middle of the 17th-century.
Notable members
T ...
, making Page a member by marriage.
Page was an activist in stimulating the
Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities
Founded in 1889, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities was the United States' first statewide historic preservation group. In 2003 the organization adopted the new name APVA Preservation Virginia to reflect a broader focus ...
to mobilize to save historical sites at
Yorktown and elsewhere, especially in the
Historic Triangle of Virginia
The Historic Triangle includes three historic colonial communities located on the Virginia Peninsula of the United States and is bounded by the York River on the north and the James River on the south. The points that form the triangle are James ...
, from loss to development. He was involved in gaining Federal funding to build a
seawall
A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...
at
Jamestown in 1900, protecting a site where the remains of James Fort were later discovered by
archaeologists
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
working on the
Jamestown Rediscovery
Jamestown Rediscovery is an archaeological project of Preservation Virginia (formerly the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities) investigating the remains of the original English settlement at Jamestown established in the Virgin ...
project.
He died in 1922 at the age of 69 at
Oakland, Virginia in
Hanover County, Virginia
Hanover County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 109,979. Its county seat is Hanover Courthouse.
Hanover County is a part of the Greater Richmond Region.
History
Located in the wester ...
.
Publications
![Pastime Stories MET DP823538](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Pastime_Stories_MET_DP823538.jpg)
* ''In Ole Virginia, or Marse Chan and Other Stories'' (1887) short stories.
* ''Befo' de War: Echoes in Negro Dialect'' (1888) poems.
* ''Two Little Confederates'' (1888) short novel for young readers.
* ''Among the Camps'' (1891) short stories for young readers.
* ''Elsket, and Other Stories'' (1891) short stories.
* ''On Newfound River'' (1891) novel.
* ''The Old South: Essays Social and Political'' (1892) essays.
* ''The Burial of the Guns'' (1894) short stories and one novella.
* ''Pastime Stories'' (1894) short stories.
* ''Unc' Edinburg: A Plantation Echo'' (1895).
* ''Social Life in Old Virginia Before the War'' (1896).
* ''The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock'' (1897) novella.
* ''Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction'' (1898) novel.
* ''Santa Claus's Partner'' (1899).
* ''A Captured Santa Claus'' (1900).
* ''Gordon Keith'' (1903) novel.
* ''Two Prisoners'' (1903).
* ''Bred in the Bone'' (1904) short stories.
* ''The Negro'' (1905).
* ''The Coast of Bohemia'' (1907) poems.
* ''John Marvel, Assistant'' (1907) novel.
* ''Under the Crust'' (1907) short stories and one play.
* ''The Old Dominion: Her Making and Her Manners'' (1908) essays.
* ''Tommy Trot's Visit to Santa Claus'' (1908).
* ''Robert E. Lee: The Southerner'' (1908).
* ''Mount Vernon and Its Preservation, 1858-1910'' (1910).
* ''Robert E. Lee: Man and Soldier'' (1911).
* ''The Land of the Spirit'' (1913).
* ''The Page Story Book'' (1914).
* ''The Stranger's Pew'' (1914) short story.
* ''The Shepherd Who Watched by Night'' (1916).
* ''Address at the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of Jamestown'' (1919).
* ''Italy and the World War'' (1920).
* ''Dante and His Influence: Studies'' (1922).
* ''The Red Riders'' (1924).
Selected articles
"Lee in Defeat,"''The South Atlantic Quarterly,'' Vol. VI (1907).
"The Spirit of a People Manifested in their Art,"''Art and Progress,'' Vol. II (1910).
"Our Relation to Art,"''The American Magazine of Art,'' Vol. XIII (1922).
Collected works
* ''The Novels, Stories, Sketches and Poems of Thomas Nelson Page'' (18 vols., 1910–12).
See also
*
Thomas Nelson Page House
The Thomas Nelson Page House is an historic house located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975. The building currently serves as headquarters for the Ame ...
, listed on the National Register of Historic Places
References
Further reading
* Bailey, Fred Arthur (1997). "Thomas Nelson Page and the Patrician Cult of the Old South," ''International Social Science Review,'' Vol. 72, No. 3/4, pp. 110–121.
*
Baskervill, William Malone (1911)
"Thomas Nelson Page."In: ''Southern Writers.'' Nashville, Tenn.: Publishing House M.E. Church, South, pp. 120–151.
* Bundrick, Christopher (2008). "Return of the Repressed: Gothic and Romance in Thomas Nelson Page's Red Rock," ''South Central Review,'' Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 63–79.
*
Cable, George W. (1909). "Thomas Nelson Page, a Study in Reminiscence and Appreciation," ''Book News Monthly,'' Vol. 18, pp. 139–140.
* Christmann, James (2000). "Dialect's Double-Murder: Thomas Nelson Page's 'In Ole Virginia'," ''American Literary Realism,'' Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 234–243.
* Coleman, Charles W. (1887)
"The Recent Movement in Southern Literature,"''Harper's Magazine,'' Vol. 74, pp. 837–855.
* Flusche, Michael (1976). "Thomas Nelson Page: The Quandary of a Literary Gentleman," ''The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography,'' Vol. 84, No. 4, pp. 464–485.
* Gaines, Anne-Rosewell J. (1981). "Political Reward and Recognition: Woodrow Wilson Appoints Thomas Nelson Page Ambassador to Italy," ''The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography,'' Vol. 89, No. 3, pp. 328–340.
*
Gordon, Armistead C. (1924)
"Thomas Nelson Page (1853–1922)."In: ''Virginian Portraits.'' Staunton, Va.: McClure Company, pp. 125–137.
* Gross, Theodore L. (1966). "Thomas Nelson Page: Creator of a Virginia Classic," ''The Georgia Review,'' Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 338–351.
* Holman, Harriet R. (1969). "Thomas Nelson Page's Account of Tennessee Hospitality," ''Tennessee Historical Quarterly,'' Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 269–272.
* Holman, Harriet R. (1970). "The Kentucky Journal of Thomas Nelson Page," ''The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society,'' Vol. 68, No. 1, pp. 1–16.
* Holman, Harriet R. (1970). "Attempt and Failure: Thomas Nelson Page as Playwright," ''The Southern Literary Journal,'' Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 72–82.
* Kent, Charles W. (1907)
"Thomas Nelson Page,"''The South Atlantic Quarterly,'' Vol. 6, pp. 263–271.
* Martin, Matthew R. (1998). "The Two-Faced New South: The Plantation Tales of Thomas Nelson Page and Charles W. Chesnutt," ''The Southern Literary Journal,'' Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 17–36.
* McCluskey, John (1982). "Americanisms in the Writings of Thomas Nelson Page," ''American Speech,'' Vol. 57, No. 1, pp. 44–47.
*
Mims, Edwin (1907)
"Thomas Nelson Page,"''The Atlantic Monthly,'' Vol. 100, pp. 109–115.
* Page, Rosewell (1923). ''Thomas Nelson Page.'' New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
* Quisenberry, A.C. (1913). "The First Pioneer Families of Virginia", ''Register of the Kentucky State Historical Society'', Vol. 11, No. 32, pp. 55, 57–77.
* Roberson, John R. (1956). "Two Virginia Novelists on Woman's Suffrage: An Exchange of Letters between Mary Johnston and Thomas Nelson Page," ''The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography,'' Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 286–290.
*
Wilson, Edmund (1962). ''Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the Civil War.'' New York: Oxford University Press.
External links
*
*
Works by Thomas Nelson Page at
Hathi Trust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...
Works by Thomas Nelson Page at
JSTOR
JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...
*
Social Life in Old Virginia before the War.New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897.
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Page, Thomas Nelson
1853 births
1922 deaths
19th-century American novelists
20th-century American novelists
Ambassadors of the United States to Italy
American essayists
American white supremacists
American male novelists
American memoirists
American people of English descent
American people of Scottish descent
19th-century American poets
American male short story writers
Nelson family of Virginia
Thomas Nelson Page
Thomas Nelson Page (April 23, 1853 – November 1, 1922) was an American lawyer, politician, and writer. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Italy from 1913 to 1919 under the administration of President Woodrow Wilson during World War I.
In his ...
People from Hanover County, Virginia
Novelists from Virginia
Novelists of the Confederacy
Writers from Washington, D.C.
20th-century American poets
American male poets
American male essayists
19th-century American short story writers
Writers of American Southern literature
University of Virginia School of Law alumni
Washington and Lee University alumni
People from Dupont Circle
Barbour family
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American diplomats
Burials at Rock Creek Cemetery
Neo-Confederates
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters