William Dean Howells / James Arlington Wright

William Dean Howells, known as "The Dean of American Letters," was born in Martins Ferry in 1837, the son of an itinerant printer and publisher. Self-educated, he learned the printer's craft early, entered journalism, and rose to city editor of the Ohio State Journal in Columbus in 1858. From 1871 to 1881 he served as editor of the Atlantic Monthly magazine, a position of enormous influence on American literary tastes, and championed the work of Emily Dickenson, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Stephen Crane, and others. A prolific writer who published over one hundred works, he is best known for realistic fiction including A Modern Instance in 1882 and The Rise of Silas Lapham in 1885, and many of his novels reflect his Ohio roots. James Arlington Wright was born in Martins Ferry on December 13, 1927. His early life during the Depression years was difficult, but he graduated as valedictorian from Martins Ferry High School in 1946, later taught at the University of Minnesota and Hunter College in New York, and published numerous books and volumes of poetry, many featuring people and settings from Martins Ferry. In 1972 he received a Pulitzer Prize in Literature, died on March 25, 1980, and is honored each April by Martins Ferry's James Wright Poetry Festival.

Martins Ferry, Ohio · United States