Charles Follen Adams

Charles Follen Adams ( * April 21, 1842 in Dorchester, Massachusetts, † March 8, 1918 in Roxbury, Massachusetts) was an American poet who was known primarily for his poetry collection Leedle Yawcob Strauss.

Life

After attending public schools Adams began in 1857 as a fifteen- year-old to work as a merchant's assistant, before he began his military service as a volunteer in the 13th Infantry Regiment of Massachusetts during the Civil War in 1862. In the following years he took part in all combat operations of his unit and fell in July 1863 after being wounded during the Battle of Gettysburg in captivity. After his release, he was a long time in treatment.

Adams began at the beginning of the 1870s, as a writer of mostly humorous poems in the dialect of the Pennsylvania Dutch as the first time in 1872 in The Puzzled Dutchman in the band Our Young Folks.

After his famous collection of poems Leedle Yawcob Strauss, and Other Poems (1877 ) was followed not only Dialect Ballads (1887 ) and Yawcob Strauss, and Other Poems (1910 ), but also numerous publications in newspapers or magazines like Mother 's Doughnuts and Cut, cut behind! in Harper 's Magazine.