Thomas W. Wilcox (AC 1942) Papers

Thomas W. Wilcox (1921-2008, AC 1942) was born in New York City, the son of Daniel and Katherine Wilcox. He attended Amherst College, where he was a friend of classmate Richard Wilbur (AC 1942). After graduation, Wilcox served during World War II in the United States Navy as a pilot. His flight simulation instructor was Darleen Butcher, whom he married two weeks after they met. After his discharge in 1945, he attended Harvard University, where he earned a Master's Degree in 1946. He taught as a professor of literature at several colleges and universities, including the University of Connecticut, where he supervised the freshman English program and taught as a professor of English from 1962 until his retirement in 1986. He had two children, Patricia and Daniel.

Richard Purdy Wilbur (AC 1942), a poet, translator and critic, was born in New York City in 1921. He married Mary Charlotte "Charlee" Ward shortly after his graduation from Amherst in 1942 and joined the Enlisted Reserve Corps shortly after that. Wilbur was called to active duty in 1943 and served in the Europe and North Africa before being discharged at the end of the war in 1945.

Wilbur has taught English at Harvard and Wesleyan Universities and Wellesley and Smith Colleges. He has been awarded a number of honors for his poetry, including the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize (twice), the Wallace Stevens Award, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the Frost Medal, the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Bollingen Prize, the T. S. Eliot Award, a Ford Foundation Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Edna St. Vincent Millay Memorial Award, the Oscar Blumenthal Prize for Poetry, the Harriet Monroe Poetry Award, the National Arts Club medal of honor for literature, two PEN translation awards, the Prix de Rome Fellowship, and the Shelley Memorial Award. He was elected a chevalier of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques and is a Chancellor Emeritus of The Academy of American Poets.

In addition to poetry, he has also published numerous translations of plays by Molière and Racine, contributed the lyrics for Leonard Bernstein's musical Candide, written several books for children, and produced two collections of critical writing. In 1987-1988 Richard Wilbur served as Poet Laureate of the United States; the following year he was the Robert Frost Library Fellow at Amherst College, where he has spoken and read his work on numerous occasions. Together, he and Charlee have children Ellen, Christopher, and Aaron.