Robert Underwood Johnson papers

1875-1937

Robert Underwood Johnson, born in 1853, was an editor of The Century Magazine from 1879 until 1913. He also served as the American Ambassador to Italy from 1920-1921, and was a founding member of the American Copyright League. He was a published poet, and active in a number of humanitarian and artistic pursuits, including the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Committee for the Preservation of Yosemite National Park, the Italian War Relief Fund of America, and the American Poets Ambulances in Italy.

Robert Underwood Johnson was born in Washington, D.C., in 1853. In 1871 He graduated from Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, at the age of eighteen. Shortly thereafter, he took a position as a clerk for Scribner Educational Books, and within two years he was promoted to the editorial staff of Scribner's Monthly, from which The Century Magazine evolved.

Under the editorial auspices of Richard Watson Gilder, The Century became one of the most widely read general periodicals in the United States, reaching its peak of popularity in 1884 with the publication of its series Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Johnson became managing editor in 1879, and succeeded Josiah Gilbert Holland as associate editor upon Holland's death in 1881. When Gilder died in 1909, Johnson assumed his position as chief editor, although by this time the era of American literary periodicals was in decline. As editor, Johnson had hoped to launch a new and less expensive magazine to compete in the evolving market, but the board of directors did not back him in this pursuit. Johnson resigned in 1913; The Century Magazine merged with The Forum magazine in 1930.

As a published writer himself, Johnson was passionately devoted to the development and strengthening of copyright laws in the United States and abroad. The American Copyright League was organized in 1883 in response to the rampant piracy suffered by American authors whose works were regularly reproduced outside the United States without authorization. It evolved from Richard Watson Gilder's Authors Club and became the main vehicle of authors and publishers to lobby Congress for the passage of the International Copyright Act.

Johnson was made secretary of the League in 1888, and he remained a tireless activist for copyright law until his death. He was decorated by the governments of France and Italy for his efforts in this arena, and was awarded an honorary degree from Yale. The work of the League paid off; The International Copyright Act was passed into law in 1891. Among the League's prominent members were R. R. Bowker, Andrew Carnegie, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Theodore Roosevelt, and Thorvald Solberg, the country's first Register of Copyrights.

Johnson was also an early proponent of conservation policy, and together with noted conservationist John Muir, he used his political clout to mobilize the movement which resulted in the creation of Yosemite National Park. He became chairman of the National Committee for the Preservation of Yosemite National Park in 1913, and in this capacity appealed directly to President Roosevelt to create a conference of governors to conserve state forests. This conference eventually became the White House conference on conservation.

Johnson was foremost a man of letters, as evidenced not only in his career with The Century and the publication of numerous volumes of poetry, but by his membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Letters (of which he was named permanent secretary); and in the founding of the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association with Lord Rennell Rodd and H. Nelson Gay, which raised funds to acquire and preserve the final home of John Keats in Rome.

In 1920, Johnson was appointed American Ambassador to Italy by President Woodrow Wilson. His connection to Italian politics had been an ongoing theme; as president of the Italian War Relief Fund of America, he raised $225,000 for humanitarian aid for that country; and he organized and oversaw the committee of the American Poets Ambulances in Italy, which presented 112 ambulances to the Italian army in 1917.

Upon his return to the United States in 1921, Johnson remained active in many of his former organizations, and his autobiography, RememberedYesterdays, was published in 1923.

Johnson married Katharine McMahon in 1876. The couple had two children, Owen McMahon Johnson, a successful author in his own right, and Agnes McMahon Johnson (Mrs. French H. Holden). He died in 1937.