Charles Montgomery Skinner

Charles Montgomery Skinner (15 March 1852 – 1907) was an American writer.

Skinner was born in Victor, New York. His career in literature and journalism included editorship of the Brooklyn Eagle. His study of the paper’s famed Walt Whitman appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1903.

Skinner published collections of myths, legends and folklore found inside the United States and across the world. Skinner hoped that America’s progress would transform the nation’s few legends into few but great ones – “as time goes on the figures seen against the morning twilight of our history will rise to more commanding stature.” He hoped to combine folklore conventions with New England transcendentalism to keep alive traditions endangered by the industrial age.

Skinner’s writings were wide ranging. He was a playwright, authoring Villon, the Vagabond. Skinner’s other interests included the seasons, especially as they changed inside of industrializing cities. In order to improve the urban environment, he authored a guide to gardening and urban beautification. He also commented on turn-of-the-century America’s turbulent economy in Workers and the Trusts and American Communes. His other contributions to American literature included works of natural history such as With Feet to the Earth and Do-Nothing Days.

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