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| Affiliation | Nonpartisan |
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| Name | James Whitcomb Riley |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
October 07, 1849
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| Died | July 22, 1916
(66 years)
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | Juan Croniqueur
Apr 06, 2023 09:50pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | James Whitcomb Riley (Greenfield, Indiana, October 7, 1849 - July 22, 1916) was an American writer and poet. Known as the "Hoosier Poet" and the "Children's Poet," he started his career in 1875 writing newspaper verse in Indiana dialect for the Indianapolis Journal. His verse tended to be humorous or sentimental, and of the approximately one-thousand poems that Riley published, over half are in dialect. Claiming that “simple sentiments that come from the heart” were the secret of his success, Riley satisfied the public with down-to-earth verse that was "heart high." Although Riley was a bestselling author in the early 1900s and earned a steady income from royalties, he also traveled and gave public readings of his poetry. His favorite authors were Robert Burns and Charles Dickens, and Riley himself befriended bestselling Indiana authors such as Booth Tarkington, George Ade and Meredith Nicholson. Many of his works were illustrated by the popular illustrator Howard Chandler Christy.
Riley loved children, but he never had any of his own; he also never married. For the last twenty-three years of his life he lived on Lockerbie Street, near downtown Indianapolis, as a paying guest of his friends Major and Mrs. Charles Holstein. Indiana honored Riley after his death in 1916 by burying him in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. The site of his grave is atop Strawberry Hill, the highest point in Indianapolis, offering a spectacular view of the city. Although Riley's poetry has fallen out of popularity, a few of his poems, such as Little Orphant Annie and Lockerbie Street, continue to be taught in schools in Indiana.
In 1916 a group of prominent citizens from Indianapolis organized the Riley Memorial Association (now the Riley Children's Foundation) to build a children's hospital in memory of the Hoosier Poet. The James Whitcomb Riley Hospital for Children opened in 1924.
The foundation also purchased the poet's birthplace and boyhood home on in downtown Indianapolis; it is maintained as a museum and today, the James Whitcomb Riley House is the only late-Victorian home in Indiana that is open to the public, and the country's only late-Victorian preservation, featuring authentic furniture and decor from that era.
In 1950, the foundation organized Camp Riley, a camp in south central Indiana for children with disabilities. Also in 1924, James Whitcomb Riley High School opened in South Bend, Indiana.
As a lasting tribute, the citizens of Greenfield hold a festival every year in Riley's honor. Taking place the first weekend of October, the Riley Festival traditionally commences with a flower parade in which local elementary school children place flowers around the statue of Riley on the county courthouse lawn, while the Greenfield-Central High School band plays lively music in honor of the poet. The larger Riley parade is on that Saturday and is a lovely fall sight. The Greenfield-Central High School band also holds their annual Riley Marching Festival on that same day. Some citizen criticise, however, that they are honoring the town drunk.
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