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22 Facts About Edwin Mims

1.

Edwin Mims was an American university professor of English literature.

2.

Edwin Mims served as the chair of the English Department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, for thirty years from 1912 to 1942, and he taught many members of the Fugitives and the Southern Agrarians, two literary movements in the South.

3.

Edwin Mims was a staunch opponent of lynching and a practicing Methodist.

4.

Edwin Mims was born in 1872 in Richmond, Arkansas, near Texarkana.

5.

Edwin Mims's father was Andrew Jackson Mims and his mother, Cornelia Williamson.

6.

Edwin Mims had a brother, Stewart L Mims, who later resided in Greenwich, Connecticut.

7.

Edwin Mims graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1892 and a Master of Arts degree in 1893.

8.

Edwin Mims was the editor of The Vanderbilt Hustler, the main campus newspaper.

9.

Edwin Mims earned a PhD from Cornell University in 1900.

10.

Edwin Mims began his career at his alma mater, Vanderbilt University, where he became an assistant professor in 1892.

11.

Edwin Mims was a professor of English at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and later at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

12.

Edwin Mims went on to serve as the Chair of the English Department at Vanderbilt University from 1912 to 1942.

13.

Edwin Mims asked students to write an autobiographical essay each year.

14.

Edwin Mims wrote a history of Vanderbilt University as well as of Chancellor Kirkland.

15.

However, Allen Tate tried to expose his hypocrisy as Edwin Mims assured Ransom he would be welcome to stay in his department at Vanderbilt.

16.

Edwin Mims established the Law and Order League, an anti-lynching organization.

17.

Edwin Mims addressed the New York Southern Society in New York City, where he reiterated his opposition to lynching.

18.

Edwin Mims's 1926 book entitled The Advancing South was a call to action for progressives in the South.

19.

Edwin Mims served as President of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Southern States, later known as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, in 1902.

20.

In June 1898, Edwin Mims married Clara Puryear, the daughter of a tobacco broker from Paducah, Kentucky.

21.

Edwin Mims's funeral took place at the West End United Methodist Church on the edge of the Vanderbilt University campus, and he was buried at the Woodlawn Memorial Park in Nashville, Tennessee.

22.

Edwin Mims's pallbearers included Richmond Beatty, Harvie Branscomb, Walter Clyde Curry, Hugh Jackson Morgan, Charles Madison Sarratt, and Herbert Charles Sanborn.