Mastin, Florence Ripley, 1886-1968

Florence Ripley Mastin (1886-1968) was an award-winning American poet.

Mastin was born in Wayne, Pennsylvania but her family moved while she was still very young to "Four Gables," the Mastin family home in Pierpont, New York. Mastin graduated from Tappan Zee High School in 1903 (she wrote the class poem) and then from Barnard College.

Her poetry career began at the age of 14 when the Nyack Star published her poem, "The Hudson River." Her first book, Green Leaves, was published in 1918. She taught poetry for 38 years at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, where her students included Bernard Malamud and others. Many of her former students have publicly expressed their appreciation for her teaching and her influence on their work.

Ms. Mastin was a member of the Poetry Society of America and winner of many poetry awards. Her work was published in the New York Times, the Saturday Review and other national periodicals. In 1959 the New York State Commission on Historic Observances selected her poem, "Freedom's Dream" as the official "Year of History" poem for the 350th Hudson-Champlain Celebration, and this poem also won the Freedom Foundation Medal that year.

[Portions of this biographical sketch adapted from The Piermont Newsletter, Volume XXXIX No. 1 (Spring 2009) .]

From the guide to the Florence Ripley Mastin Papers, 1848-1969, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)