The New International Encyclopædia/Gilder, Richard Watson

GILDER, Richard Watson (1844— ). An American poet and editor. He was born in Bordentown, N. J., February 8, 1844, the son of the Rev. William Henry Gilder, at whose seminary in Flushing, Long Island, he was educated. During the Civil War, while a student of law in Philadelphia, he served as a private in Landis's Battery at the time of the invasion of Pennsylvania. After some experience in editorial work, he, with Newton Crane, founded the Newark Register, and later was editor of Hours at Home, and afterwards assistant editor of Scribner's Monthly, into which the former was merged. In 1881 he succeeded Dr. Holland as editor-in-chief of the latter under its new name of the Century, a position which he still holds (1903). Mr. Gilder takes an active interest in all public affairs, especially those which tend toward reform and good government, and is a member of many New York clubs. He was one of the founders of the Society of American Artists, of the Authors Club, and of the International Copyright League; also chairman of the New York Tenement House Commission of 1894. He was first president of the New York Kindergarten Association; vice-president and acting president of the City Club of New York; president of the Public Art League of the United States; a member of council of the National Civil Service Reform League; a founder of the Anti-Spoils League; and a member of the American Institute of Arts and Letters. He has published volumes of poems, as follows: The New Day (1875); The Celestial Passion; Lyrics; Two Worlds; The Great Remembrance (these in one volume); Five Books of Song (1894); For the Country (a selection, 1897); In Palestine, and Other Poems (1898); and Poems and Inscriptions (1901).