Harriet Monroe (1916-1936) was born in 1860. A native of Chicago, she spent part of her early life in China studying the native art. Upon her return to America, she became highly discontent with the poetic situation. Her own writing was rejected from magazines such as Atlantic Monthly, a publication that, like many, held the view that poetry was a mere “filler” for the more serious, important essays and articles. In 1912, at the age of fifty-one, she created a new forum exclusively for poets. During her lifetime, Monroe edited several volumes of poetry, wrote a book of essays entitled Poets and their Art, co-edited an anthology called The New Poetry with her colleague and friend Alice Corbin Henderson, and composed an autobiography, A Poet’s Life, in 1938. Despite these many accomplishments, Monroe’s greatest achievement, and the basis of her literary reputation, was the editorship of this important magazine.

Compiled by Alice Neumann Class of "06 & Simone Muller, 1-year-International, Germany @ Davidson College