Thomas Sully, George Ticknor (1791 1871), Class of 1807, 1831, oil on canvas. Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Gift of Constance V.R. White, Nathaniel T. Dexter, Philip Dexter, and Mary Ann Streeter; P.943.130.
A Boston Brahmin Abroad:
George Ticknor, Hispanism, & Dartmouth
George Ticknor, Dartmouth Class of 1807, embodied the nineteenth-century concept of a "gentleman of letters." After Dartmouth, he studied law, then moved into his real love, language and literature. He became the first professor of modern languages at Harvard and revolutionized the teaching of modern languages and literatures in the United States.
Perhaps most famous for authoring the first history of Spanish literature and being one of the original organizers of the Boston Public Library, Ticknor, along with his wife Anna, maintained an active literary salon and amassed a phenomenal personal library, a significant portion of which came to the Dartmouth Library in 1946 and is currently housed in Rauner Special Collections Library. This exhibit gives an overview of Ticknor's life, work, and enduring influence.
Exhibit curated by Humanities and Social Sciences Librarian Daniel Abosso; Jill Baron, Librarian for Romance Languages & Latin American Studies; and Jay Satterfield, Head of Special Collections. Design by Dennis Grady. Digital exhibit by Laura Barrett and Laura Braunstein.