Calvin H. Wiley

Calvin Henderson Wiley (Feb. 3 1819–Jan. 11 1887) was a North Carolina educator. He was the first superintendent of public schools in the state, as well as a novelist.^[1]

Early life

Calvin H. Wiley was born on February 3, 1819 in Guilford County, North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1840 and was admitted to the bar in 1841.

Career

After serving two years in the North Carolina legislature he became superintendent of common schools on Jan. 1, 1853, and served in that office until the end of the Civil War in 1865, when along with all other state officials he was removed from office. During his term as superintendent he founded and edited the North Carolina Common School Journal in 1856, which lasted only one year but was subsequently put on a firmer footing as the North Carolina Journal of Education. He was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church in 1866.

Wiley wrote two historical romances set in North Carolina during the American revolution, Almance (1847) and Roanoke (1849). Roanoke was reissued under a number of titles, including Life in the South (1852), Utopia (1851),^[2] and Adventures of Old Dan Tucker (1852). The stories incorporate North Carolina traditions, legends, history, and settings.^[3] Under the title, Life at the South, Roanoke was given the subtitle, A Companion to Uncle Tom's Cabin, in an effort to capture some of the popularity of Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous text.^[4]

Death

Wiley died at his home in Salem, North Carolina in 1887.

References

1. Calvin Wiley Biography at University of North Carolina Documenting the South Website
2. The book was released in London under this title without authorization
3. Richards, Robert, Concise Dictionary of American Literature, Rowman & Littlefield, 1955, page 245
4. Meer, Sarah. Uncle Tom Mania: Slavery, Minstrelsy, and Transatlantic Culture in the 1850s. University of Georgia Press, 2005, page 77