James Ryder Randall

James Ryder Randall (1899)

James Ryder Randall (born January 1, 1839 in Baltimore , Maryland ; died January 15, 1908 in Augusta , Georgia ) was an American journalist and poet.

life and work

Randall studied at Georgetown University but eventually dropped out and was given a professorship in English literature at the small Poydras College in Pointe Coupée , Louisiana .

In 1861 he was instantly famous for the poem Maryland, My Maryland , which he wrote in patriotic exuberance after hearing about the riots in Baltimore on April 19, 1861, which marked the beginning of the Civil War . This extremely martial poem is a call to the citizens of his home state Maryland to avenge the fallen “ martyrs ” and to drive the “scum of the North” - meaning the troops of the Union Army - out of the country, subject to the “tyranny” of the American government End Lincoln and join the Southern Confederation. The poem turned out to be extremely effective propaganda. To the tune of O Tannenbaum , it became popular as a battle song of the Confederation troops and thus developed into the southern state equivalent of Julia Ward Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic .

After the war ended, Randall embarked on a career as a journalist and eventually became a longtime Washington correspondent for the Augusta, Georgia daily Chronicle . He continued to be active in the literary profession, but none of his numerous later poems achieved the immense popularity of Maryland, My Maryland . In 1939 the Maryland General Assembly raised the poem to the status of the official state song by law .

literature

Work editions

• Matthew Page Andrews: The Poems of James Ryder Randall . Tandy-Thomas, New York 1910.

Secondary literature

• JE Uhler: James Ryder Randall in Louisiana . In: Louisiana Historical Quarterly 21, 1938, pp. 532-546.