Leigh Mitchell Hodges
{{short description|American poet}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Leigh Mitchell Hodges
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1876|7|9}}
| birth_place = Denver, Colorado, US
| death_date = {{death date and age |1954|4|4|1876|7|9}}
| death_place = Wooster, Ohio, US
| education =
| known_for =
| occupation = Writer
}}
Leigh Mitchell Hodges (July 9, 1876 – April 4, 1954) was an American journalist, author, poet, and lecturer. He was the recipient of the 1952 Benjamin Rush Award.{{cite news |title=Medical Society to honor journalist Leigh Hodges |url=https://patch.com/pennsylvania/doylestown/this-was-doylestown-1952-e6b50786 |accessdate=21 June 2020 |publisher=Doylestown Daily Intelligencer}}
Life
Hodges was born in Denver, Colorado, on July 9, 1876. He attended high school in Carthage, Missouri and went to college at the School of Fine Arts in St. Louis. He worked as a reporter, contributor, and editor for such new organizations as the Missouri Daily Ledger, The Kansas City Star, the Ladies' Home Journal, The New Yorker, Reader's Digest, and The Times of London.{{cite news |title=How Factual Evidence Subdued Tabloid Fiction in the Next Friends Suit of 1907 |url=https://www.longyear.org/learn/research-archive/next-friends-suit-1907/ |work=Longyear Museum |date=10 September 1995}} Hodges is known for writing a column called The Optimist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, known at the time as Philadelphia North American, and later writing a book of the same name, which was later republished as The Great Optimist and Other Essays. He also wrote several more books, poems, and hymns. He also worked with Emily Bissell to introduce Christmas Seals to raise funds and awareness for lung diseases such as tuberculosis.{{cite news |title=Christmas Seal story: a holiday tradition |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=348&dat=19761129&id=lSUvAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PDMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6682,4947997 |accessdate=21 June 2020 |publisher=Rome News-Tribune |date=29 November 1976}}Wells, A. E. Canadian Journal of Public Health / Revue Canadienne De Sante'e Publique, vol. 34, no. 6, 1943, pp. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/41978549 294–295]. JSTOR. Accessed 21 June 2020.
Works
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- The Great Optimist and Other Essays (1903)
- In the Beauty of the Lilies (1904)
- The Worth of Service (1904)
- Poems We Love (1907)
- Golden book of the Wanamaker stores. Jubilee year, 1861-1911 (1911)
- The Great Encouragement, and Other Helpful Essays (1913)
- Bird Guardians; a Masque for Bird Protection (1915)
- The Bard at Home (1916)
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References
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Category:American male journalists
Category:19th-century American poets