Robert G. Ingersoll

Robert Green Ingersoll (born August 11, 1833 in Dresden , Yates County , New York , † July 21, 1899 in Dobbs Ferry , New York) was a lawyer and politician and one of the leading US speakers in the late 19th century. He was one of the most prominent representatives of the then flourishing free-thinking and father of the women's rights activist Eva Ingersoll Brown .

Life

Ingersoll's father John was a Presbyterian clergyman who often had to change his place of work because of his opposition to slavery . In 1854 Robert Ingersoll was admitted to the bar ; In 1857 he settled in Peoria ( Illinois down).

During the Civil War Ingersoll fought in the Army of the Northern States , in which he held the rank of Colonel . He then became politically active in the Republican Party and worked from 1867 to 1869 as Attorney General of Illinois.

Although his avowed agnosticism prevented the continuation of his political career, he became one of the most famous public speakers of his time and was named in the same breath as Mark Twain and Charles Dickens because of his outstanding rhetoric . His attitude to religion criticism earned him both hostility and admiration.

In 1862 Ingersoll married Eva Amelia Parker (1841-1923), with whom he had two daughters. The older daughter, Eva Ingersoll Brown, was a feminist and campaigned for women's suffrage with other upper class women.

Ingersoll died of heart failure in 1899 . His speeches were collected soon after his death by his brother-in-law Clinton P. Farrell and edited in twelve volumes. His friend Alois Zotz translated Ingersoll's works into German while he was still alive.

Fonts

The Liberty of man, woman, and child . 1877
- Human freedom. Publishing house of the Free Religious State Community of Württemberg, Stuttgart 1963
The works of Robert G. Ingersoll. 12 volumes. The Dresden Publishing Co, New York 1902 ( Online in the Internet Archive )
What's God Got to Do with It? Robert Ingersoll on Free Thought, Honest Talk and the Separation of Church and State. Edited by Tim Page. Steerforth Press, 2005
The gods . German by Alois Zotz. Peoria, Ill., R. Eichenberger 1872

Web links

Commons : Robert G. Ingersoll - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Wikisource: Robert G. Ingersoll - Sources and full texts

Literature by and about Robert G. Ingersoll in the catalog of the German National Library

Biography on the Council for Secular Humanism website

Online versions of his works on the Secular Web

Susan Jacoby : A New Birth of Reason , Essay in The American Scholar , Winter 2013.

Individual evidence

↑ Ingersoll files in the Public Library, URL: https://www.loc.gov/search/?in=&q=Eva+Ingersoll+Brown&new=true&st= (accessed April 26, 2018).

personal data
SURNAME	Ingersoll, Robert G.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Ingersoll, Robert Green
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American public speaker and speech writer
DATE OF BIRTH	August 11, 1833
PLACE OF BIRTH	Dresden , New York
DATE OF DEATH	July 21, 1899
Place of death	Dobbs Ferry , New York

[1] Ingersoll files in the Public Library, URL: https://www.loc.gov/search/?in=&q=Eva+Ingersoll+Brown&new=true&st= (accessed April 26, 2018).