![]() Whittier became an outspoken critic of President Andrew Jackson, and by 1830 was editor of the prominent New England Weekly Review in Hartford, Connecticut, the most influential Whig journal in New England. Shortly after a change in management, Garrison reassigned him as editor of the weekly American Manufacturer in Boston. Garrison gave Whittier the job of editor of the National Philanthropist, a Boston-based temperance weekly. Whittier valued the opinion of the older and more established writer, pledging that if Neal did not like his writing, " I will quit poetry, and everything also of a literary nature, for I am sick at heart of the business." In an 1829 letter, Neal told Whittier to "Persevere, and I am sure you will have your reward in every way." Reading Neal's 1828 novel Rachel Dyer inspired Whittier to weave New England witchcraft lore into his own stories and poems. Whittier received the first substantial public praise for his work from critic John Neal via Neal's magazine The Yankee in 1828. He attended Haverhill Academy from 1827 to 1828 and completed a high school education in only two terms. Before his second term, he earned money to cover tuition by serving as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in what is now Merrimac, Massachusetts. To raise money to attend the school, Whittier became a shoemaker for a time, and a deal was made to pay part of his tuition with food from the family farm. Garrison as well as another local editor encouraged Whittier to attend the recently opened Haverhill Academy. His sister Mary Whittier sent his first poem, "The Deity", to the Newburyport Free Press without his permission, and its editor, William Lloyd Garrison, published it on June 8, 1826. Whittier was first introduced to poetry by a teacher. Whittier was heavily influenced by the doctrines of his religion, particularly its stress on humanitarianism, compassion, and social responsibility. Although he received little formal education, he was an avid reader who studied his father's six books on Quakerism until their teachings became the foundation of his ideology. Whittier himself was not cut out for hard farm labor and suffered from bad health and physical frailty his whole life. The farm was not very profitable, and there was only enough money to get by. As a boy, it was discovered that Whittier was color-blind when he was unable to see a difference between ripe and unripe strawberries. ![]() He grew up on the farm in a household with his parents, a brother and two sisters, a maternal aunt and paternal uncle, and a constant flow of visitors and hired hands for the farm. His middle name is thought to mean feuillevert, after his Huguenot forebears. Whittier was born to John and Abigail ( née Hussey) Whittier at their rural homestead in Haverhill, Massachusetts, on December 17, 1807. Whittier is remembered particularly for his anti-slavery writings, as well as his 1866 book Snow-Bound. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. John Greenleaf Whittier (Decem– September 7, 1892) was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States.
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