27 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA 18015
To explore the relationships between the various bohemian writers and artists who frequented Pfaff's bar, select a person or group, and then select a relationship type. This section of the site is currently under construction; new content is being added on a regular basis.
Aldrich is one of the few members of the Bohemian group that Stedman is known to have been acquainted with.
Gunn details a visit from Stedman and Aldrich (155-6)
Stedman tells Gunn in a note to meet him at the World office (196).
Gunn receives another request from Stedman to meet him at the World office (204).
Stedman called on Gunn one evening (61).
Gunn went to the Stedmans for a visit (149-50).
Gunn met Stedman one afternoon (192).
Gunn describes a conversation he had with Stedman, who he saw the the World office (11).
Gunn details an encounter with Stedman on the street (213).
Ludlow was a member of Taylor's poetic group, along with Richard Henry Stoddard, Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard, Edmund Clarence Stedman, George Henry Boker, Fitz-James O'Brien, Christopher P. Cranch, and George William Curtis.
Stedman called and Whitman and the became an "ardent admirer" of his (479).
Stedman is listed among the "active and honorary" pallbearers at Whitman's funeral (594 n.153).
Stedman in mentioned as a writer Whitman met at Pfaff's (61).
Taylor, Stoddard, Aldrich, and Stedman are mentioned as the parties in New York involved in the "inconsistent opposition" to the third edition of Leaves of Grass in 1859-1860. Clapp battled against them.
Clapp called Stedman a "bogus Bohemian."
Stedman is included along with Taylor, Stoddard, and Aldrich as the parties in New York involved in the "inconsistent opposition" to the third edition of Leaves of Grass in 1859-1860. Lalor writes that "It was chiefly against this ambivalent group and against the naysayers of New England that Clapp did battle for Whitman, with a characteristic originality of method which was both a tribute to the Press at the same time it was a boon to Whitman" (137).
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Stedman was part of a group of men who tormented Whitman over his Leaves of Grass (53).
Whitman discusses how Stedman is the "pick and treasure" of the "bitter" New York Crowd (47).
Whitman seems to be often critical of him and his personality (106-7).
Stedman and Howland helped to found the Saturday Press with Henry Clapp (26).
One of the founders of the Saturday Press with Clapp (26).
Emerson included Stedman's How old Brown took Harper's Ferry in his Parnassus.
Stedman and House were war correspondents together.
Mr. Stedman wrote the introduction to one of her books (184).
Stedman writes a letter welcoming Aldrich home after six months abroad (219).
Aldrich writes a letter to Stedman expressing his sorrow over the loss of his friend Bayard Taylor (224).
Aldrich wrote in a letter to Stedman about Boston, "In the six years I have been here, I have found seven or eight hearts so full of noble things that there is no room in them for such trifles as envy and conceit and insincerity. I didn't find more than two or three such in New York, and I lived there fifteen years. It was an excellent school for me-to get out of!"
Aldrich is mentioned to have shared sentiments with his friend Stedman when he "looked back with incredulity at his Bohemian days at Pfaff's."
Arnold was one of the few members of the Bohemian group that Winter claims Stedman was acquainted with. Arnold and Stedman met in childhood at "The Phalanx," at Strawberry Farms, New Jersey.
Derby reprints Stedman's poetic tribute to Greeley.
Stedman was mentioned as being among the assembled group at Pfaff's when Howells visited during his first New York trip, where they likely first met (218).
Howells and Stedman met before he published this piece to reminisce and share their recollections of this time period together (70).
Howells discusses meeting Stedman before either experienced any fame and how they would share writing with one another. It seems Stedman would advise Howells on publication venues (71).
Howells also discusses Stedman's "worldliness" and his appearance when they first met (72).
Stedman is described as "the most esteemed and trusted friend of the aged couple [the Stoddards]" (9).
Derby writes that Stoddard was introduced to Stedman through Bayard Taylor. Stedman and Taylor had recently met, and Stedman asked Taylor about Stoddard, "the poet, whom he had always wanted to know." Taylor introduced the two men the next day and began a life-long friendship between the two men (535).
According to Derby, "As a poet, Mr. Stoddard ranks in public estimation with his friends Edmund C. Stedman and Thomas Bailey Aldrich, contributing more frequently, however, to magazines and other literary journals of the day" (603).
Taylor, Stoddard, Aldrich, and Stedman are mentioned as the parties in New York involved in the "inconsistent opposition" to the third edition of Leaves of Grass in 1859-1860 (137).
In an obituary of Stoddard, Stedman is mentioned as "the closest of the poet's surviving friends" (378).
Parry writes that Stoddard attempted to "wean" his "valued friends" O'Brien, Stedman, and Taylor away from Pfaff's; "O'Brien resisted succesfully, and died tragically, but Stedman and Taylor were easily led into respectability" (59).
According to Derby, Stedman's "How old Brown took Harper's Ferry" was the "indirect cause of the beginning of a lasting friendship with Bayard Taylor." Taylor was lecturing in the West when the poem was published in the Tribune, and would sometimes read the poem to his audiences. When he returned to New York, he and Stedman met for the first time. Stedman asked Taylor about Stoddard, and Taylor introduced the two men the next day, beginning another life-long friendship. Derby also writes that "The death of Bayard Taylor was a great blow to his brother poets, and both Mr. Stedman and Mr. Stoddard have in prose and poetry rendered affectionate tributes to the memory of their friend, the distinguished poet, traveler, and diplomat, whose death created a vacancy in American literature which has never been filled" (535).
In a letter to William Winter, Taylor mentions some of the reviews of his works, including Stedman's review of his Vienna Letters, which Taylor says he would think were ironic if he didn't have an existing friendship with Stedman and if Stedman hadn't seen the poem before it was published (173-4).
Winter notes that Taylor's writings show that he had strong affection for Stoddard and Boker (177).
Donaldson includes Stedman among the list of friends of Whitmann (198).
He describes Stedman as a friend, supporter, and admirer of Whitman and claims his name is "a synonym for elegance, purity of mind, and thorough cultivation, and the possession of the grace of harmonious and euphonious poetic diction" (213).
Donaldson also includes a letter from Stedman to Whitman (213-4).
Whitman befriended Stedman while at Pfaff's.
In a letter from William Winter to Stedman, dated May 1, 1863, Winter describes his social isolation: "I am, as I ever was, something of a black sheep and none of our friends care to acknowledge me socially" (79).
Winter writes that he knew Stedman as a poet before they met in 1862. Winter says that their acquaintance "speedily ripened into a friendship that was never marred, notwithstanding our variant opinions as to literary matters and our invariably frank and explicit criticism of one another as votaries of the Muse." Winter claims that they would not have had a true friendship if they had not been able to speak honestly to one another. Winter notes that Stedman knew several authors and does not know how he interacted and critiqued them, but writes that Stedman was always both honest and considerate with him (297-298).
Stedman lived in one of Andrews' Utopia projects which was called a "Unitary Home" or the "Brownstone Utopia."
The obituary reports that Stedman was with Stoddard for the last year and was at his bedside the day Stoddard died (217).
27 Memorial Drive West, Bethlehem, PA 18015