Johnson, Robert Underwood

Johnson, Robert Underwood (1853–1937) editor, poet; born in Washington, D.C. Raised in Centerville, Ind., he graduated from Earlham College and in 1873 joined the staff of Scribner's Monthly. Named associate editor of the magazine in 1881, by then called Century, he edited the famous Century series of Civil War recollections that later became the four-volume Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1887). A leading conservationist, he published John Muir's articles and lobbied for the establishment of Yosemite National Park. Century went into decline after 1900 and Johnson resigned the editorship under pressure in 1913. He was ambassador to Italy in 1920–21. A lifelong versifier, he published Poems of Fifty Years and two successor volumes in the 1930s.