Archibald McLeish is an American modernist poet and writer, World War I veteran, librarian of Congress, Harvard professor and winner of three Pulitzer Prizes. Author of many dramas and plays for radio and theater.
Biography
Archibald McLeish was born on May 7, 1892 in Glencoe, Illinois. Father - Andrew McLeish, Scottish by birth, founder of the Chicago department store "Carson Peary Scott". Mother - Martha McLeish (Hillard) - professor and president of Rockford College.
Archibald was educated at Hotchkiss School. After school he entered Yale University with a specialization in English. MacLish then went on to study at Harvard Law School.
During the First World War he served as an ambulance driver, then trained as an artillery officer. Participant of the Second Battle of the Marne. Archibald's brother Kenneth McLeish was killed during the war.
After the war, McLeish taught law at Harvard for a year, then got a job as an editor at the New Republic magazine, then spent three years practicing law in Boston.
In 1926 he released his first poem "Memorial Rain", dedicated to the horrors of the First World War.
Life in paris
In 1923, MacLeish left the legal profession and went with his wife to Paris, where they became members of the community of literary emigrants and part of the collective of the owners of the French Riviera. Archibald returned from Paris to America in 1930, after which he got a job as a writer and editor in the magazine "Fortuna", where he worked until 1938.
In Paris, MacLeish published his poem, which quickly sold out. Since then, he began to earn money by writing poetry and poems. In 1932, one of McLeish's long poems, The Conquistador, won the Pulitzer Prize.
By 1938, McLeish became seriously involved in politics, preaching the ideas of anti-fascism.
Working at the Library of Congress
American libraries ranked McLeish as one of the 100 most influential figures in librarianship of the 20th century. Immediately after this, Archibald's close friend Felix Frankfurter persuaded US President Franklin Roosevelt to make McLeish the Librarian of Congress, which was done on July 10, 1939.
During his tenure as librarian McLeish, he significantly reorganized the work of this institution, created several relevant departments, and reorganized the operating structure of the Library. The old Library consisted of 35 divisions, the new one began to consist of only three divisions.
In addition, under McLeish, the Library began to promote its activities widely, and the US Congress greatly increased its funding. Due to this, the salaries of the Library staff were increased, the number of purchased books increased, and new positions appeared.
In late 1944, McLeish resigned as Librarian of Congress and took over as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.
The Second World War
During World War II, McLeish co-founded the Research and Analysis Division of the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA.
McLeish also served as director of the Department of Fact and Figures of the War Department during World War II and the position of Assistant Director of the Office of War Information. Also over the past war years, McLeish wrote many politically motivated works, and also spent a year as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Relations and represented the United States at UNESCO for another year.
After the end of World War II, Archibald retired from public service.
Writing career
In 1949, McLeish became professor of rhetoric and oratory at Boyleston, Harvard University. He will hold this position until 1962.
By the early 1950s, Archibald was already an established leftist writer, active in leftist organizations and friends with leftist writers. In 1959 he received the second Pulitzer Prize for his dramatic play JB.
From 1963 to 1967, McLeish worked at Amherst College as a lecturer for John Woodruff Simpson. In 1969, in collaboration with Bob Dylan, he wrote several songs for the latter.
Legacy and awards
Archibald McLeish became the first Librarian of Congress to begin the naming process for what would become the United States Poet Laureate and Poet Laureate Poetry Consultant at the Library of Congress.
Several collections of McLeish's work are held in the Beinecke Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts at Yale University. In addition to these collections and additions to them, more than 13,500 items, papers and McLeish manuscripts were collected. All are in the Archibald McLeish collection at Greenfield Community College in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Archibald McLeish is the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes: two for poetry. and one for the drama. The first he received in 1933 for the poem "Conquistador". The second - in 1953 for a collection of poems from 1917-1952. Third Prize for JB Drama in 1959.
In 1946, McLeish became Commander of the Legion of Liberty in France.
In 1953 he received the National Book Prize for Poetry for his collection of poetry. In the same year, Archie received another prize for poetry - the Bollingen Prize.
In 1959 he won the Tony Award for Best Theatrical Performance - JB Drama.
In 1977, McLeish was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Personal life
Archibald McLeish married Ada Hitchcock, a musician in 1916. Over the years of marriage, they acquired three children: Kenneth, Mary Hillard and William. William McLeish went on to write his father's memoir Mountainous with Archie (2001).
Movies and theatrical performances based on the writer's works
The Story of Eleanor Roosevelt (1965) is an American biographical documentary directed by Richard Kaplan based on the works of Archibald MacLeish. Also in 1965, this picture won the Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Panic (1935) is a tragic play by McLeish, one of his most little-known works. The plot is set in the sixth year of the Great Depression, during the Bank Panic of 1933, and depicts the fall of the world's richest man, banker McGufferty. The play was first shown in 1935 at the Imperial Theater in Manhattan, and was later played at the Phoenix Theater.
The Fall of the City (1937) is the first American poetic play. First published on Radio Columbia in a 30-minute radio broadcast on April 11, 1937. The plot of the play is an allegory for the rise of fascism.
JB is a 1958 play written in free verse and is a modern retelling of the story of the biblical character Job. McLeish began work on it in 1953 as a one-act play, and finished in 1958 as a complete three-act production. Currently, two versions of the play have survived: the original and the Broadway script, significantly revised by MacLeish himself.
