William Augustus Croffut

William Augustus Croffut

William Augustus Croffut (born January 29, 1836 in Redding , Connecticut , † July 31, 1915 in Washington, DC ) was an American journalist and author. In an April 1878 article in the New York Daily Graphic , Croffut coined Thomas Alva Edison 's name "Wizard of Menlo Park".

Live and act

After attending public schools in Orange , William Croffut earned his Ph.D. from Union College. From the mid-1850s he worked as a journalist for the New Haven Palladium newspaper in Connecticut. With the start of the American Civil War , Croffut Private was in the First Minnesota Regiment and field correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune . After the Civil War, Croffut was a correspondent for a number of newspapers, the Rochester Democrat (New York), the St. Paul Times (Minneapolis), the Minneapolis Tribune , the Chicago Post , the New York Daily Graphic and the New York World . During Grover Cleveland's first presidency , Croffut served as editor of the Washington Post .

From 1888 to 1894, Croffut served as an administrator for the United States Geological Survey . In 1899 he founded the Washington Anti-Imperialist League in Washington, a regional branch of the American Anti-Imperialist League and became its secretary. He later was president of the Liberty League .

In addition to his work as a journalist, William Croffut wrote non-fiction books, novels and poetry collections. For his libretto Deseret wrote Dudley Buck (1839-1909) the music. The comic opera was performed in New York in 1882.

William Croffut was married twice. He died in Washington, DC on July 31, 1915 after a long illness

Fonts (selection)

• The Military and Civil History of Connecticut during the War of 1861-1865. Comprising a detailed account of the various regiments and batteries ... Ledyard Bill, New York 1868 - with John Moses Morris.
• A helping hand for town and country: An American home book of practical and scientific information… . 1868.
• Bourbon ballads . New York 1880.
• Deseret, or, A saint's afflictions: an American opera in three acts . Haines Grand, Upright, and Square Pianos, New York 1880.
• A midsummer lark . Henry Holt & Co., New York 1883.
• The Vanderbilts and the Story of their Fortune . Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, London [1886].
• Suggestions for the preparation of manuscript and illustrations for publication by the US Geological survey . [Gov't print. Off., Washington 1892].
• The prophecy, and other poems . Lovell, New York [1894].
• Folks next door; the log book of a rambler . The Eastside publishing company, Washington, DC [1904].
• An American Procession, 1855-1914. A personal chronicle of famous men… . Little, Brown & Co., Boston 1931.

proof

literature

• [Anonymous]: Dr. WA Croffut Dead: Editor and Traveler Expired in Washington After a Long Illness . In Special to The New York Times , August 2, 1915, (online) .
• Thomas William Herringshaw (Ed.): Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography . Volume 2. American Publishers' Association, Chicago 1909, pp. 154-155, Text Archive - Internet Archive .
• Croffut, William Augustus . In: James Grant Wilson, John Fiske (Eds.): Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography . tape 2 : Crane - Grimshaw . D. Appleton and Company, New York 1887, p. 13 (English, Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ WA Croffut: The Wizard of Menlo Park . In: The New York Daily Graphic . April 10, 1878, (online) .
2. ^ Paul B. Israel, Keith A. Nier (eds.): The Papers of Thomas A. Edison: The Wizard of Menlo Park, 1878 . Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1998, ISBN 0-8018-5819-4 , p. 133.
3. ↑ Members of the Washington Anti-Imperialist League ( Memento of the original from September 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . (accessed on August 11, 2011)