Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908)
Professor of the History of Fine Arts at Harvard, Social Reformer & Liberal Activist
He and Allan Marquand of Princeton were the first to introduce the serious study of art into the curriculum of American colleges. He graduated from Harvard where from 1872 until his retirement in 1898 he was Professor of the History of Fine Arts. He was briefly editor of The North American Review and one of several who assisted Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in translating Dante's Divine Comedy. He was elected the first President of the Archaeological Institute of America. He edited several collections of letters, including those of George William Curtis, James Russell Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Carlyle. He also published several books on architecture, art, and travel. His cousin, Charles William Eliot, became the 21st President of Harvard. The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship of Poetry at Harvard University was established in 1925 as an annual lectureship in "poetry in the broadest sense." In 1862, he married Susan, daughter of Theodore Sedgwick and they were the parents of 6-children.
