Chapin, Katherine Garrison, 1890-1977

Poet and author. Mrs. Francis Biddle.

Poet; wife of Francis Biddle.

Katherine Garrison Chapin Biddle was born on Sept. 4, 1890, in Waterford, Connecticut. She was the daughter of Lindley Hoffman Chapin and Cornelia Garrison Van Auken. On April 27, 1918, Katherine Biddle married Francis Biddle (U.S. attorney general, 1942-45). They had two sons, Edmund Randolph and Garrison Chapin (1923-30) Educated in private schools, she also studied music with Kurt Schindler, founder of the Schola Cantorum; acting with playwright Rachel Crothers; and philosophy under the tutelage of Max Eastman. She was a prolific writer, particularly on poetry, with essays and reviews appearing in The American scholar, Botteghe oscure (Rome), Contemporary poetry, Harper's, Poetry magazine, Prairie schooner, The saturday review of literature, The Sewanee review, and many others. A published poet, her works include Outside of the world (1930); Bright mariner, written in memory of her son Garrison Chapin Biddle (1933); Time has no shadow (1936); Lament for the stolen, written in response to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby (1938); Plain chant for America (1942); The other journey (1959); and The Chinese deer (1975). Katherine Biddle's poetry has been translated into French and Spanish. Her own translations include the poetry of Gabriela Mistral, Raphael Alberti, and Paul Claudel. Plays include The tapestry for the duchess, performed at the Heckscher Theatre, New York (1925); and Sojourner Truth, performed by the American Negro Theatre (1948). Throughout her life, Katherine Biddle maintained a tireless and enthusiastic schedule of lectures on contemporary poetry at schools, colleges, and clubs. In 1944, Archibald MacLeish appointed her one of the original Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress, a title she held for ten years, thereafter becoming an honorary consultant in American letters. Although she was never measured against the luminaries whose company she shared, her "quiet, unpretentious verse...openly concerned with universal experience and emotion," (in the words of critic B. A. Robie) won Katherine Biddle the admiration of many of the most prominent writers of the day. Katherine Biddle's love and patronage of the performing and visual arts provided lasting friendships and voluminous correspondence with notables in both fields. A staunch advocate for the civil rights of minorities, Katherine Biddle numbered among her friends eminent African Americans such as Langston Hughes and Alain Locke. She died on Dec. 30, 1977, in Devon, Pennsylvania.

Chapin was an American poet, patron of literature and the arts. Numerous poems of hers were set to music by prominent composers of her day. She served as a Fellow in American Literature at the Library of Congress (1944-1955). Her husband, Francis Biddle, was the U.S. Attorney General (1942-1945) and judge at the Nuremberg Trials.

Biographical Note

Katherine Garrison Chapin was born in Waterford, Connecticut, on September 4, 1890, and died in Pennsylvania on December 30, 1977. She was educated at Columbia University and beginning in the 1920s became published as a poet in such publications as Harper's, Scribner's, Saturday Review, North American Review, Poetry, and the Ladies' Home Journal . Other of her works were set to music and performed by leading orchestras. In 1918 she married Francis Biddle, later attorney general in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.