{{Short description|United States professor of English literature}} {{Infobox person | name =Edwin Mims | image = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = May 27, 1872 | birth_place = Richmond, Arkansas, U.S. | death_date = September 15, 1959 | death_place = Nashville, Tennessee, U.S. | death_cause = | resting_place =Woodlawn Memorial Park | resting_place_coordinates = | other_names = | known_for = | education = Webb School | alma_mater = Vanderbilt University<br/>Cornell University | employer = | occupation = University professor | title = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | political_party = | boards = | spouse = | children = | parents = Andrew Jackson Mims<br/>Cornelia Williamson | relatives = }}
'''Edwin Mims''' (1872–1959) was an American university professor of English literature. He 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. He was a staunch opponent of lynching and a practicing Methodist.
==Early life== Edwin Mims was born in 1872 in Richmond, Arkansas, near Texarkana.<ref name="nashvilletennesseannotededucator">{{cite news|title=Dr. Mims Dies; Noted Educator of Vanderbilt. Health Declined After Hip Fracture; Services Tomorrow|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/111564518|work=The Nashville Tennessean|date=September 16, 1959|pages=1–2|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration }}</ref><ref name="loisbrown">Lois Brown, ''The Encyclopedia of the Harlem Literary Renaissance'', New York, New York: Infobase Publishing, 2006, p. 348 [https://books.google.com/books?id=t910en1a7pkC&pg=PA348]</ref> His father was Andrew Jackson Mims and his mother, Cornelia Williamson.<ref name="nashvilletennesseannotededucator"/> He had a brother, Stewart L. Mims, who later resided in Greenwich, Connecticut.<ref name="nashvilletennesseannotededucator"/>
Mims was educated at the Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1892 and a Master of Arts degree in 1893.<ref name="loisbrown"/><ref name="kara">Kara Furlong, [http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbiltview/articles/2011/01/01/looking-back.129111 Edwin Mims] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20140121210409/http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbiltview/articles/2011/01/01/looking-back.129111 |date=2014-01-21 }}, ''Looking Back'', 01/01/2011</ref> He was also the editor of ''The Vanderbilt Hustler'', the main campus newspaper.<ref name="kara"/> He earned a PhD from Cornell University in 1900.<ref name="nashvilletennesseannotededucator"/>
==Career== Mims began his career at his alma mater, Vanderbilt University, where he became an assistant professor in 1892.<ref name="nashvilletennesseannotededucator"/> He was a professor of English at Duke University (then known as Trinity College) in Durham, North Carolina, and later at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.<ref name="kara"/>
The second Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, James Hampton Kirkland (1859–1939), convinced him to return to his alma mater to teach.<ref name="kara"/> He went on to serve as the Chair of the English Department at Vanderbilt University from 1912 to 1942.<ref name="loisbrown"/><ref name="kara"/><ref name="williamstevens">William Stevens Powell, ''Dictionary of North Carolina Biography'', Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1991, p. 281 [https://books.google.com/books?id=kDQ0DyvxjEAC&pg=PA281]</ref><ref>Herschel Brickell, [http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1944/autumn/brickell-vanderbilt-literary/ The Vanderbilt Literary Movement], ''Virginia Quarterly Review'', Autumn 1944</ref> One of his requirements was to ask his students to learn a thousand verses of poetry by heart.<ref name="kara"/> He also asked students to write an autobiographical essay each year.<ref name="maryeweaks">Mary Weaks-Baxter, ''Reclaiming the American Farmer: The Reinvention of a Regional Mythology in Twentieth-century Southern Writing'', Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State University Press, 2006, pp. 81-82 [https://books.google.com/books?id=vEQqD3EQ1D0C&pg=PA81]</ref> He wrote a history of Vanderbilt University as well as of Chancellor Kirkland.<ref name="kara"/> Some of his students included Donald Davidson, Robert Penn Warren, Cleanth Brooks, Andrew Nelson Lytle, Allen Tate, Merrill Moore and Jesse Stuart.<ref name="williamstevens"/><ref name="maryeweaks"/><ref>Alphonse Vinh, ''Cleanth Brooks and Allen Tate: Collected Letters, 1933-1976'', Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1998, p. 75 [https://books.google.com/books?id=3q4YuBUvZMEC&pg=PA75]</ref> Stuart's ''Beyond Dark Hills'', was the direct result of one of Mims's assignments (writing an autobiographical essay); it was published in 1938.<ref name="maryeweaks"/> During his tenure as chair, he wrote to Chancellor Kirkland to discourage him to match the offer that Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, had made to his colleague John Crowe Ransom, so that Ransom would leave for Ohio instead.<ref name="williamstevens"/><ref name="thomasunderwood">Thomas A. Underwood, ''Allen Tate: Orphan of the South'', Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 274 [https://books.google.com/books?id=0M_iUdjxb3IC&pg=PA274]</ref> However, Allen Tate tried to expose his hypocrisy as Mims assured Ransom he would be welcome to stay in his department at Vanderbilt.<ref name="thomasunderwood"/> Another colleague, Lyle H. Lanier, agreed that this demonstrated Mims's hypocrisy.<ref name="thomasunderwood"/>
A progressive, Mims became vocal in his opposition to lynching.<ref name="kara"/> He established the Law and Order League, an anti-lynching organization.<ref name="kara"/> He also addressed the New York Southern Society in New York City, where he reiterated his opposition to lynching.<ref name="kara"/> His 1926 book entitled ''The Advancing South'' was a call to action for progressives in the South.<ref name="loisbrown"/><ref name="kara"/> It was reviewed favourably by Alain Leroy Locke (1885–1954) in ''Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life''.<ref name="loisbrown"/>
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.<ref name="williamstevens"/> He then served on its executive committee.<ref name="williamstevens"/> He lectured at the Chautauqua Institution in 1912-1942.<ref name="nashvilletennesseannotededucator"/> He was also a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and served on the joint hymn book commission between the Methodist Episcopal Church, North and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1902-1903.<ref name="williamstevens"/>
==Personal life, death and legacy== In June 1898, Mims married Clara Puryear, the daughter of a tobacco broker from Paducah, Kentucky.<ref name="williamstevens"/> They had four children: Edwin, Catherine, Thomas and Ella.<ref name="williamstevens"/> His daughter Ella was active in the Nashville chapter of the Southern Regional Council.<ref name="nashvilleway40">{{cite book |last1=Houston |first1=Benjamin |title=The Nashville Way: Racial Etiquette and the Struggle for Social Justice in a Southern City |date=2012 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |location=Athens, Georgia |isbn=9780820343266|oclc=940632744 |page=40}}</ref>
Mims died on September 15, 1959, in Nashville.<ref name="nashvilletennesseannotededucator"/><ref name="loisbrown"/> His 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.<ref name="nashvilletennesseannotededucator"/><ref name="williamstevens"/> His pallbearers included Richmond Beatty, Harvie Branscomb, Walter Clyde Curry, Hugh Jackson Morgan, Charles Madison Sarratt, and Herbert Charles Sanborn.<ref name="nashvilletennesseannotededucator"/>
A pair of statues representing Dismas and Lazarus in the foyer of the Benton Chapel on the campus of Vanderbilt University are dedicated in his honor.<ref>[http://www.vanderbilt.edu/religiouslife/wedding-guidelines/benton-chapel Vanderbilt University: Benson Chapel]</ref> The ''Edwin Mims Professorship'' at Vanderbilt University is named in his honor.<ref name="loisbrown"/> It was the result of a fundraising campaign by alumnus Lucius E. Burch Jr. (1912–1996).<ref name="loisbrown"/>
==Bibliography== {{wikisource|works=or}} *''Advancing South: Stories of Progress and Reaction'' (New York, New York: Doubleday, 1926). *''Adventurous America: A Study of Contemporary Life and Thought'' (New York, New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1929).<ref>[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.89472 <!-- quote=inauthor:"Edwin Mims". --> Internet Archive]</ref> *''Chancellor Kirkland of Vanderbilt'' (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 1939). *''History of Vanderbilt University'' (Nashville, Tennessee: Vanderbilt University Press, 1946).<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=86VBAAAAIAAJ Google Books]</ref> *''The Christ of the poets'' (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1948). *''A Biography of Sidney Lanier'' *''Great Writers As Interpreters of Religion''
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Gutenberg author | id=560| name=Edwin Mims}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Edwin Mims}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mims, Edwin}} Category:1872 births Category:1959 deaths Category:People from Pulaski County, Arkansas Category:Educators from Nashville, Tennessee Category:Webb School (Bell Buckle, Tennessee) alumni Category:Vanderbilt University alumni Category:Cornell University alumni Category:Duke University faculty Category:University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty Category:Vanderbilt University faculty Category:Methodists from Tennessee Category:American anti-lynching activists Category:Burials at Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery (Nashville, Tennessee)