Charles Wilbert Snow | |
---|---|
75th Governor of Connecticut | |
In office December 27, 1946 – January 8, 1947 |
|
Lieutenant | Vacant |
Preceded by | Raymond E. Baldwin |
Succeeded by | James L. McConaughy |
68th Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut | |
In office 1945–1946 |
|
Governor | Raymond E. Baldwin |
Preceded by | William L. Hadden |
Succeeded by | Vacant |
Personal details | |
Born |
Whitehead Island, Maine |
April 6, 1884
Died | September 28, 1977 Spruce Head, Maine |
(aged 93)
Political party | Democratic |
Spouse(s) | Jeanette Simmons Snow |
Children | Charles Wilbert Snow, John Forest Snow, Nicholas Snow, Stephen Snow, and Gregory Elisha Snow |
Religion | Episcopalian |
Charles Wilbert "Bill" Snow (April 6, 1884 – September 28, 1977) was an American poet, educator and politician. He served as the 75th Governor of Connecticut. He generally went by the name Wilbert or Bill Snow, or formally as C. Wilbert Snow.
Snow was born on Whitehead Island, Maine, the son of Katherine Faber (Quinn), from New Brunswick, Canada, and Forrest A. Snow. He grew up in Whitehead Island and in neighboring Spruce Head Village. At the age of 14, Snow left school to become a lobster fisherman; he returned to school three years later after moving to Thomaston, Maine. After graduating, he began teaching in a one-room elementary school while studying at Bowdoin College. Bowdoin's President, William Dewitt Hyde helped Snow attain the scholarship he needed to finance his studies. At Bowdoin, Snow was on the debate team and editor of "The Quill", the campus literary magazine.
Snow earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin in 1907, receiving Phi Beta Kappa honors. He obtained a one-year replacement appointment teaching debate and public speaking at New York University. He enrolled at Columbia University where he obtained his master's degree in 1910, using Bowdoin's first Longfellow Fellowship. One of Smith's students was Carl Van Doren, to whom he introduced the works of Herman Melville, then in total obscurity. Van Doren, in turn, became responsible for the national rediscovery of Melville. But Snow rebelled at the rigid academic degree progression and told Ashley Horace Thorndike head of Columbia's English Department that the PhD "was a German invention designed to turn an art into a science." He never took his doctorate.
Snow returned to Bowdoin as temporary instructor of debate and English. From there it was on to Williams College for another one year temporary appointment. One of his favorite students was James Phinney Baxter III who shared Snow's disdain for the academic rigamarole and nearly got tossed out as a result. Some 25 years later, Baxter returned to Williams as President. At the end of that year he was hired to teach debate and English at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Snow's political views were very far left for the period. It took the President of Miami only ten days to decide he talked "too plainly with undergraduates about politics and religion" and ask him to leave.