Edwin Meade Robinson (1878-1946) was a Cleveland, Ohio, poet, newspaper columnist, novelist, and lecturer who conducted Cleveland's most prestigious contributors' column, "Philosopher of Folly", in the pages of the Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Leader. "Ted" Robinson came to Cleveland in 1905 and began a column at the Cleveland Leader called "Just by the Way." He moved to the Plain Dealer in 1910, and eventually became an associate editor and the literary editor after 1922. Robinson wrote a new poem nearly every day for his column, and eventually more than 600 amateur as well as professional writers contributed to the column. Robinson published 2 volumes of verse, Mere Melodies (1918) and Pipings and Pannings (1921), and the novel Enter Jerry (1922). Throughout the 1930s, he lectured on language and philology at Cleveland College. Robinson served as president of the City Club and the American Press Humorists, and was a vice-president of the Cleveland Play House and a member of the Rowfant Club. The collection consists of letters, biographical information, published and unpublished manuscripts, speech texts, and scrapbooks, relating largely to the poetry and prose in Robinson's column, "Philosopher of Folly." The collection contains the original typescript of many of Robinson's columns and the newsprint version, 1903-1946, as well as other poetry, the typescript of a novel, lectures on language and philology, and translations of the poet Horace.
