Cornelius Mathews

Cornelius Mathews (October 28, 1817 - March 25, 1889) was an American writer best remembered for his role in the late 1830s establishment of the literary group Young America with editor Evert Duyckinck and author William Gilmore Simms. Mathews was born in Port Chester, New York on October 28, 1817, to Abijah Mathews and Catherine Van Cott. He went to Columbia College and graduated from New York University in 1834. He then went to law school and was admitted to the New York bar in 1837. At the...See more

Cornelius Mathews (October 28, 1817 - March 25, 1889) was an American writer best remembered for his role in the late 1830s establishment of the literary group Young America with editor Evert Duyckinck and author William Gilmore Simms. Mathews was born in Port Chester, New York on October 28, 1817, to Abijah Mathews and Catherine Van Cott. He went to Columbia College and graduated from New York University in 1834. He then went to law school and was admitted to the New York bar in 1837. At the time, American literature was usually thought to be inferior to British literature, and American authors were pushed to closely follow English patterns. This, at least, was the opinion of New York's literary elite, who tended to gravitate around the influential and conservative editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine, Lewis Gaylord Clark. Mathews emphatically disagreed, calling for a new literary style that would represent a uniquely American identity, but not in a populist or demotic way. See less