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E.E Cummings

EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS ("Estlin") is born October 14 in family residence 104 Irving Street, Cambridge, Mass., the son of EDWARD and REBECCA CLARKE CUMMINGS. His energetic, versatile, and highly articulate father teaches sociology and political science at Harvard in the 1890's and in 1900 is ordained minister of the South Congregational Church, Unitarian, in Boston. The Irving Street household will include at various times Grandmother Cummings, MISS JANE CUMMINGS ("Aunt Jane"), EEC's maternal uncle, GEORGE CLARKE, and younger sister ELIZABETH ("Elos"), who eventually marries Carlton Qualey. EEC attends Cambridge public schools, vacations in Maine and at the family summer home, Joy Farm, in Silver Lake, N.H. "Ever since I can remember I've written; & painted or made drawings."
1911 Enters Harvard College, specializing in Greek and other languages He contributes poems to Harvard periodicals, is exposed to the work of EZRA POUND and other modernist writers and painters, and forms lasting friendships with JOHN DOS PASSOS ("Dos"), R. STEWART MITCHELL ("The Great Awk"), EDWARD NAGLE (stepson of the sculptor Gaston Lachaise), SCOFIELD THAYER ("Sco"), JAMES SIBLEY WATSON ("Sib"), S. FOSTER DAMON, GILBERT SELDES, M. R. WERNER ("Morrie"), JOSEPH FERDINAND GOULD ("Joe"), ROBERT HILLYER.
1915 Graduates magna cum laude; delivers commencement address on "The New Art."
1916 Receives MA from Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
1917 In New York. Lives at 21 East 15th Street with the painter ARTHUR WILSON ("Tex"). Works for P. F. Collier & Son. In April joins Norton-Haries Ambulance Corps. Sails for France on La Touraine, meeting on board another Harjes-Norton recruit, WILLIAM SLATER BROWN, who will remain his lifelong friend. After several weeks in Paris EEC and Brown are assigned to ambulance duty on Noyon sector. Brown's letters home arouse suspicions of French army censor. On September 21, he is arrested together with Cummings, who refuses to dissociate...