author
Jessie Belle Rittenhouse
1869–1948
A lively champion of modern poetry, she helped introduce early 20th-century readers to new voices while building a career as a poet, critic, and anthologist. Her work moved easily between literary journalism, public lectures, and influential collections of verse.
1 Audiobook
The Younger American Poets
by Jessie Belle Rittenhouse
About the author
Born in Mount Morris, New York, Jessie Belle Rittenhouse graduated from Genesee Wesleyan Seminary and began her working life as a teacher before turning fully toward writing and criticism. She became known in the early 1900s as a literary critic, lecturer, and editor with a strong interest in contemporary poetry.
Rittenhouse is especially remembered for the anthologies that helped shape readers' ideas of modern American verse. She was an advocate for new poetry, wrote several books of her own, and was a founding member of the Poetry Society of America. Later in life she married the poet Clinton Scollard, and she is sometimes listed as Jessie Belle Rittenhouse Scollard.
Her reputation rests not only on her own poems but also on her gift for recognizing and presenting the work of others. That mix of writer, critic, and literary organizer made her an important part of American poetry culture in the first half of the 20th century.