author
Edwin Markham
1852–1940
Best remembered for the landmark protest poem "The Man with the Hoe," this American writer brought moral urgency and sympathy for working people into popular verse. He was also a teacher and lecturer whose work reflected progressive social and spiritual ideals.
2 Audiobooks
The man with the hoe, and other poems
by Edwin Markham
Lincoln & other poems
by Edwin Markham
About the author
Born in Oregon City, Oregon, on April 23, 1852, Edwin Markham grew up largely in California, where his early years on a ranch shaped the plainspoken, humane outlook that later marked his poetry. Before becoming widely known as a writer, he trained as an educator and worked as a teacher.
Markham became famous in 1899 with "The Man with the Hoe," a poem inspired by Jean-François Millet’s painting of the same name. The poem struck a nerve with readers for its anger at social injustice and its deep sympathy for laborers, and it helped make him an important public literary voice in the early 20th century.
His poems and lectures often centered on dignity, peace, and compassion rather than literary fashion, which gave his work a broad popular audience in his lifetime. Though he is most closely associated with one major poem, he remains a notable figure in American poetry for bringing questions of labor and human worth into the mainstream.