Since 1903, members of Arts and Letters have delivered commemorative tributes to fellow members who have passed away. These remarks celebrate and reflect on the lives and work of the members being honored and acknowledge their contribution to the arts. A selection of tributes is now available in the digital archive below. As we prepared this archive, we were reminded that these tributes reflect their times, and, in some instances, include terminology and social and moral judgments we do not endorse.
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The gentle manner and lovable traits of Hermann Hagedorn masked qualities of unbending resolution and courage, just as his devotion to poetry and drama partly obscured his distinction as a historian of rigorous scholarship. Educated at the Hill School in Pennsylvania and at Harvard and Columbia, he turned to verse, plays, and literary criticism. He was one of the closest friends of E. A. Robinson. He delivered an "Ode of Dedication" as the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa poem in 1917.
An interest in the personality, ideas, and achievements of Theodore Roosevelt dominated his mature years. He became the center of a group of political leaders, social workers, and scholars who made the Roosevelt Memorial Association a lively center of civic activities and historical studies. He himself wrote a series of books on T. R.'s time which, interesting to general readers, remains indispensable to students. His volumes on Roosevelt's ranching years in Dakota, and on family life at Sagamore Hill, are fascinating. He made the reconstructed Roosevelt House on Twentieth Street not only a valuable period piece, exhibition hall, and archive, but a focus of undertakings reflecting the many-sided energies of T. R. His was the central impulse behind the Collected Works of Roosevelt, and the massive set of Roosevelt's correspondence, which sparkles with vitality and exuberance.
Then in his last years Hermann Hagedorn, in his most remarkable book, revealed the full measure of his moral valor. This was The Hyphenated Family, partly a colorful autobiography, but more memorably a penetrating study of essential elements of American life. His father was a devoted German, who spent half of each year in Germany; all his family were dedicated Germans; but when the crisis of 1914 arose, Hermann Hagedorn wrestled with himself, chose American ideals and principles, and threw himself into the struggle against the Central Powers. He never looked back; he was as complete an American as ever lived. It is impossible to read this poignant and vivid chronicle without a lifting of the heart. Few books deserve to be placed on the same shelf with the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin, Booker T. Washington, and Henry Adams, but this is one.