Description
Mining and settlement in 1860s Nevada, prospecting and settlement in the Yukon Territory
and Alaska 1897-1901, West Coast literary magazines in the early twentieth century, Pease
family history.
Background
Lucius Curtis Pease (March 27, 1869-August 16, 1963), born in Winnemucca, Nevada and raised
by grandparents in Charlotte, Vermont from the age of five after the death of his parents,
made his mark on the world in many fields. Reporter, prospector, editor and Pulitzer
Prize-winning cartoonist, his many careers spanned much of the century and took him from the
frontier of territorial Alaska to the editorial rooms of the Newark (N. J.) Evening News. Known by the nickname Lute (this nickname is used
throughout the collection to distinguish him from his father, with whom he shared first and
middle names), Pease had come back to the West from Vermont after graduating from high
school. Although he never fulfilled his aspiration to study art in Paris, his artistic and
literary bent found many outlets for expression. Beginning as a reporter and artist for the
Portland Oregonian in the 1890s, he was deeply involved with
literature and journalism for the rest of his life. Even during the five years he spent
hunting gold and adventure in the Yukon and Alaska, he enlivened the letters and diaries he
sent home to relatives with his quick wit and his sketches of people and places. Upon his
return from the North, he joined the staff of The Pacific Monthly,
a literary magazine in Portland, eventually rising to the post of editor. Before the
magazine's absorption by Sunset Magazine in 1912, Pease's
intelligent and independent editing made it a journal of progressive reform and literary
excellence. Following several years at loose ends, he joined the Evening News of Newark, New Jersey, in 1914. For the next forty years, he remained
at the paper, capping a distinguished career with the receipt of a Pulitzer Prise in 1949.
From his retirement in 1954 until his death in 1963, he devoted himself to fostering his
skills as a painter of portraits and landscapes.
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