Jesse Lynch Williams (August 17, 1871 – September 14, 1929) was an American author and dramatist. He won the first Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Why Marry? (1917). He was a journalist for three New York publications and co-founded the Princeton Alumni Weekly and the Princeton Triangle Club.
Early life
Williams was born in Sterling, Illinois, on August 17, 1871, to Elizabeth Brown (Riddle) and Rev. Meade Creighton Williams, pastor of a Presbyterian church in St. Louis, Missouri. His father wrote Early Mackinac and was the editor of a Presbyterian journal. Jesse's brothers were David. R. Williams, of St. Louis, and Terrell Williams, a law school professor of Washington University in St. Louis.
His grandfather, also Jesse Lynch Williams, was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as the government director of the roads. He was an engineer and constructor for the Union Pacific Railroad.
Education and career
Williams studied at Beloit Academy. He began his literary career in college. He won the Nassau Literary Magazine short story contest in his junior year. He received his bachelor's degree in 1892. As a graduate student at Princeton University, he wrote Princeton Stories (1895) which often featured the daily life of an undergraduate football player. He graduated from Princeton with a master's degree in 1895. In 1898, he wrote The History of Princeton University with John de Witt. He and Booth Tarkington co-founded the Triangle Club at Princeton and edited The Lit. For three years, beginning in 1900, he co-founded and was the first editor of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Robert Frost wrote a recommendation to the University of Michigan regarding his suitability for the Fellowship of Creative Arts. Frost indicated that Williams was relevant, open-minded, practical, a "good all-around participator", and, along with his wife, good company. During the 1925–1926 academic year, he held the Fellowship in Creative Arts at the University of Michigan. He received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Princeton in 1919.
