Episode 1356
John Neal (writer)
Wed, 2021-Jan-20 00:14 UTC
Length - 3:33
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day where we read the summary of the featured Wikipedia article every day.
The featured article for Wednesday, 20 January 2021 is John Neal (writer).
John Neal (August 25, 1793 – June 20, 1876) was an American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist. Considered both eccentric and influential, he delivered speeches and published essays, novels, poems, and short stories between the 1810s and 1870s in the United States and Great Britain, championing American literary nationalism and regionalism in their earliest stages. Neal advanced the development of American art, fought for women's rights, advocated the end of slavery and racial prejudice, and helped establish the American gymnastics movement.
The first American author to use natural diction and a pioneer of colloquialism, John Neal is the first to use "son-of-a-bitch" in a work of fiction. He attained his greatest literary achievements between 1817 and 1835, during which time he was the first American published in British literary journals, author of the first history of American literature, America's first art critic, and a forerunner of the American Renaissance. As one of the first men to advocate women's rights in the US and the first American lecturer on the issue, for over fifty years he supported female writers and organizers, affirmed intellectual equality between men and women, fought coverture laws against women's economic rights, and demanded suffrage, equal pay, and better education for women. He was the first American to establish a public gymnasium in the US and championed athletics to regulate violent tendencies with which he struggled throughout his life.
A largely self-educated man who attended no schools after the age of twelve, Neal was a child laborer who left self-employment in dry goods at twenty-two to pursue dual careers in law and literature. By middle age Neal had attained comfortable wealth and community standing in his native Portland, Maine through varied business investments, arts patronage, and civic leadership.
John Neal is considered an author without a masterpiece, though his short stories are his highest literary achievements and ranked with the best of his age. Rachel Dyer is considered his best novel, "Otter-Bag, the Oneida Chief" and "David Whicher" his best tales, and The Yankee his most influential periodical. His "Rights of Women" speech (1843) at the peak of his influence as a feminist had a considerable impact on the future of the movement.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:14 UTC on Wednesday, 20 January 2021.
For the full current version of the article, see John Neal (writer) on Wikipedia.
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This has been Joey Neural. Thank you for listening to featured Wiki of the Day.
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