Claude C. (Claude Carlos) Washburn

Claude Carlos Washburn was born in Mankato, Minnesota, on October 3, 1883, and moved with his family to Duluth as a child. He studied at prep schools in Florida and Massachusetts, then graduated from Harvard in 1905. While at Harvard, he wrote poetry and worked with The Advocate, the university’s literary magazine.

After college, Washburn spent several years in Europe, writing poems, short stories, essays, and plays. His first novel, Gerald Northrop, was published in 1914, and bibliographic records also credit him with works including The Baby, The Lonely Warrior, Opinions, Order, and Pages from the Book of Paris.

Washburn continued to travel during the years around the First World War, though he returned often to Duluth, which appears as a setting or backdrop in several of his writings. He died in Duluth in 1926 after contracting a streptococcic infection. A substantial archive of his papers is preserved at the University of Minnesota.