Thornton Burgess: Difference between revisions

| birth_date = {{birth date|1874|01|14|df=y}}

| death_date = {{death date and age|1965|06|05|1874|01|14|df=y}}

| occupation = Author of Childrenchildren's Books books<br/>Conservationist

| spouse = Nina E. Osbourne Burgess (1905–1906)<br/>Fannie H. Phillips Burgess (1911–1950)

[[ImageFile:Mother West Wind Where Stories frontispiece - Project Gutenberg eText 17250.jpg|thumb|[[Harrison Cady]]'s frontispiece to the ''Mother West Wind "Where" Stories'' depicting Burgess animal characters]]

'''Thornton Waldo Burgess''' (January 17, 1874 – June 5, 1965) was an American [[Conservationconservation ethicmovement|conservationist]] and author of [[Children's literature|children's stories]]. BurgessHe lovedwas thesometimes beautyknown ofas nature and its living creatures so much that he wrote about them for 50 years in books and his newspaper column,the '''Bedtime StoriesStory-Man''.', Heafter washis sometimesnewspaper known as thecolumn '''Bedtime Story-Man'Stories''. By the time he retired, he had written more than 170 books and 15,000 stories for the daily newspaper column.

Born January 17, 1874 in [[Sandwich, Massachusetts]],<ref>{{cite book|authors last1= Ehrlich,| first1=Eugene| & last2=Carruth,| first2=Gorton | title= The Oxford Illustrated Literary Guide to the United States| location= New York| publisher= Oxford University Press| date= 1982| page= [https://archive.org/details/oxfordillustrate00euge/page/59 59]| isbn= 0-19-503186-5| url-access= registration| url= https://archive.org/details/oxfordillustrate00euge/page/59}}</ref> on [[Cape Cod]], Burgess was the son of Caroline F. Haywood and Thornton W. Burgess, Sr., a direct descendant of Thomas Burgess, one of the first Sandwich settlers in 1637. Thornton, Sr., died the same year his son was born, and the young Thornton, Jr. was brought up by his mother in Sandwich. They lived in humble circumstances. As a youth, he worked tending cows, picking [[trailing arbutus]] (mayflowers) or berries, shipping water lilies from local ponds, selling candy, and trapping muskrats[[muskrat]]s. William C. Chipman, one of his employers, lived on Discovery Hill Road, a wildlife habitat of woodland and wetland. This habitat became the setting of many stories in which Burgess refers to Smiling Pool and the Old Briar Patch.<ref name=twbs>[http://www.thorntonburgess.org/ThorntonW.Burgess.htm "Thornton W. Burgess (1874 - 1965)", The Thornton W. Burgess Society]</ref>

Graduating from [[Sandwich High School]] in 1891, Burgess briefly attended a business college in [[Boston]] from 1892 to 1893, living in [[Somerville, Massachusetts]], at that time. But he disliked studying business and wanted to be an author. He relocated to [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], where he accepted a job as an editorial assistant at the Phelps Publishing Company. His first stories were written using the pseudonym '''"W. B. Thornton'''".<ref>{{cite news|author= Scully, Francis X. |title=Sage of Sandwich Wrote Over 15,000 Animal Stories, Books| work=Bradford Era|date= 24 February 1977|page= 16}}</ref>

Burgess married Nina Osborne in 1905, but she died onlyin childbirth a year later, leaving him to raise their son alone. It is said that he began writing bedtime stories to entertain his young son, Thornton III.<ref>{{cite news|title= Peter Rabbit Creator, Thornton Burgess, Dies| worknewspaper=The Washington Post|date= 7 June 1965| page= B4}}</ref> Burgess remarried in 1911; his wife Fannie had two children by a previous marriage. The couple later bought a home in [[Hampden, Massachusetts]], in 1925, that became Burgess' permanent residence in 1957. His second wife died in August 1950. Burgess returned frequently to Sandwich, which he always claimed as his birthplace and spiritual home. Many of his childhood experiences and the people he knew there influenced his interest and were the impetus for his concern for wildlife.<ref name=twbs/>

For the next 50 years, Burgess steadily wrote books that were published around the world in many languages, including French, Gaelic, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish. Collaborating with him was his illustrator and friend [[Harrison Cady]] who was born and raised in [[Gardner, Massachusetts]], and thereafter of New York and [[Rockport, Massachusetts]]. [[Peter Rabbit]] was created by British author and illustrator [[Beatrix Potter]], prompting Burgess to note, "I like to think that Miss Potter gave Peter a name known the world over, while I with Mr. Cady's help perhaps made him a character."<ref>{{cite web|url= http://twbresearchleague.blogspot.com/search?q=potter |work=Thornton W. Burgess Research League|title=Joel Chandler Harris and the Burgess Bedtime Stories|date= February 9, 2010}}</ref>

From 1912 to 1960, Burgess also broadcast on the radio. His ''Radio Nature League'' radio series began at [[WBZ (AM)]], then located in [[Springfield, Massachusetts|Springfield]], in early January 1925. Burgess broadcast the program from the studio at the Hotel Kimball on Wednesday evening at 7:30 pm&nbsp;p.m.<ref>{{cite news|title= WBZ Starts Radio Nature Association| work= The Christian Science Monitor|date= 18 February 1925|page=9}}</ref> Praised by educators and parents, the program had listeners and members in more than 30 states at its peak. Burgess' ''Radio Nature League'' disbanded briefly in August 1930, but he continued to give radio talks for WBZ concerning [[Conservation movement|conservation]] and the humane treatment of animals.<ref name=csm/>

He died on June 5, 1965, at the age of 91.<ref>{{cite book|title=Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists|author1=Craig K. Harris|author2=Keir Brooks Sterling|author3=Richard P. Harmond|author4=Richard A. Harmond|author5=George A. Cevasco|author6=Lorne F. Hammond|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|date=1997|isbn=9780313230479|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BdFuHC3DhwAC&q=+Thornton+Burgess&pg=PA124}}</ref> His son had died suddenly the year before.{{citation needed|date=October 2014}}

* ''The Radio Nature League'' broadcast from WBZAWBZ in Boston and WBZWBZA in Springfield, Massachusetts.

After his death, the [[Massachusetts Audubon Society]] purchased Burgess' Hampden home and established the Laughing Brook Wildlife Sanctuary at that location;<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.massaudubon.org/Nature_Connection/Sanctuaries/Laughing_Brook/index.php/ |website=Laughing Brook Wildlife Sanctuary|title=Official website}}</ref> [[Thornton W. Burgess House|the house]] is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]]. The [[Thornton W. Burgess Museum]] in Sandwich closed to the public October 2012.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thorntonburgess.org/ThorntonBurgessMuseum.htm |website=Thornton W. Burgess Museum|title=Official website}}</ref>

The Thornton W. Burgess Society operates the Green Briar Nature Center in East Sandwich, Massachusetts.<ref>[http://www.thorntonburgess.org/GreenBriarNatureCenter.htm "Green Briar Nature Center", The Thornton W. Burgess Society]</ref> The Society's [[Thornton W. Burgess Museum]] in Sandwich closed to the public October 2012.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thorntonburgess.org/ThorntonBurgessMuseum.htm |website=Thornton W. Burgess Museum|title=Official website}}</ref>

* A middle school in Hampden, Massachusetts was named after Burgess in honor of his work for conservation. The school opened in 1967 and was closed by the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District in June of 2018.<ref>[http://www.edline.net/pages/Thornton_Burgess_Middle_School Thornton W. Burgess Middle School, Hampden, Massachusetts]</ref>

* [[John Crowley (author)|John Crowley]]'s novel ''[[Little, Big]]'' (1980) includes allusions to locations and characters in Burgess' stories.<ref>{{citationcite news |last=Clute |first=John |authorlink=John Clute needed|date=October 20144, 1981 |title=On the Edge of the Other World |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1981/10/04/on-the-edge-of-the-other-world/9b82665e-4ee7-4c84-b2b2-b7521c623829/ |newspaper=Washington Post |access-date=February 19, 2020}}</ref>

* 1914 ''The Adventures of Peter Cottontail''<ref name=Baldwin>[http://www.mainlesson.com/displayauthor.php?author=burgess "ThrontonThornton Burgess", The Baldwin Project]</ref>

* 1965 ''The Burgess Book of Nature Lore''<ref>[https://www.librarything.com/seriesnseries/2722/Chronological+-list+-of+-Thornton+-W.+-Burgess%E2%80%99s+-Works "Chronological list of Thornton W. Burgess’s Works", LibraryThing]</ref>

* {{Gutenberg author | id=Burgess,+Thornton+W.+(Thornton+Waldo)717}}

* [http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?lookfor=%22Burgess,%20Thornton%20W.%201874-1965.%22&type=author&inst= Works by Thornton Burgess] at [[HathiTrust|Hathi Trust Digital Library]]