Authors Posters & Prints, “Se...-”
for the literature, language arts and social studies classrooms, home schoolers and scholars.

Catharine Maria Sedgwick
b. 12-28-1789; Stockbridge, MA
d. 7-31-1867; Boston

Catharine Maria Sedgwick was a novelist of what is now referred to as “domestic fiction”. She was also a promoter of “Republican motherhood” or the role of women as mothers raising children to uphold the ideals of republicanism and making them the ideal citizens of the new nation as the United States emerged before, during, and after the American Revolution (c. 1760 to 1800).

Sedgwick was friends with Eliza Lee Cabot Follen and was cared for by Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman.

Catharine Maria Sedgwick quotes ~
• “Talent and worth are the only eternal grounds of distinction. To these the Almighty has affixed His everlasting patent of nobility. Knowledge and goodness, – these make degrees in heaven, and they must be the graduating scale of a true democracy.”
• “A company attitude is rarely anybody's best.”

• Hope Leslie; Or, Early Times in the Massachusetts

Susan Anne Ridley Sedgwick
b. 5-24-1788; Stockbridge, MA
d. 1-20-1867; Stockbridge

Susan Anne Ridley Sedgwick, an author of children's books, was the sister-in-law of Catharine Sedgwick.

She painted a watercolor portrait of Elizabeth “Mumbet” Freeman.

Alan Seeger
b. 6-22-1888; New York
d. 7-4-1916; Belloy-en-Santerre, France

Poet Alan Seeger, described as a true romantic who wanted to live life to the fullest, joined the French Foreign Legion at the beginning of WWI. The poem, I Have A Rendezvous with Death, was published posthumously, after Seeger died in the Battle of the Somme.

I HAVE a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair. ...

FYI ~ Alan Seeger was the uncle of folk singer and anti-war activist Pete Seeger.

Giorgos Seferis
née Georgios Seferiades
b. 3-13-1900; Urla, Ottoman Empire
d. 9-20-1871; Athens

Giorgos Seferis was one of the most important Greek poets of the 20th century and was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his eminent lyrical writing, inspired by a deep feeling for the Hellenic world of culture.”

Seferis quote ~
• “I woke with this marble head in my hands;
It exhausts my elbows and I don't know where to put it down.
It was falling into the dream as I was coming out of the dream.
So our life became one and it will be very difficult for it to separate again.”
Mythistorema (read at the opening of the 2004 Olympics in Athens)

• George Seferis: Collected Poems

Sejour: Parisian Playwright from Louisiana (no commercially available poster)

Juan Victor Séjour
b. 1817; New Orleans, LA
d. 1874; France

Victor Sejour, the son of a free people described as mulatto and octoroon wrote “Le Mulâtre” (“The Mulatto”), the first known work of fiction by an African American author.

Sejour, who was educated in a private school by his wealthy parents, moved to Paris at the age of nineteen to continue his education and find work.

Maurice Sendak
b. 6-10-1928; Brooklyn, NY

Maurice Sendak worked as a book illustrator before he began writing and illustrating his own stories. His In the Night Kitchen regularly appears on the ALA's list of challenged and banned books.

Maurice Sendak quotes ~
• “You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them.”
• “There must be more to life than having everything.”
• “I have been doodling with ink and watercolor on paper all my life. It's my way of stirring up my imagination to see what I find hidden in my head. I call the results dream pictures, fantasy sketches, and even brain-sharpening exercises.”

Samuel Sewall
b. 3-28-1652; Hampshire, England
d. 1-1-1730; Boston, MA

Samuel Sewall, best remembered as an assistant magistrate in 1692 Salem witchcraft trials (the only judge who ever apologized), was also one of the earliest New England abolitionists with his publication The Selling of Joseph (1700), speaking out against slavery. He was also a diarist, recording life as a Puritan from 1673-1729, and spoke out about the rights of women.

Samuel Sewall quote ~
• “Liberty is in real value next unto Life: None ought to part with it themselves, or deprive others of it, but upon the most mature Consideration.”

Anna Sewell
b. 3-30-1820; Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England
d. 4-25-1878; Old Catton, Norfolk

Anna Sewell, who had difficulty walking because of a childhood injury, became concerned about the treatment of animals when forced to use horse drawn carriages for transportation.

Anna Sewall quote ~
• “There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham.” — Black Beauty

Anne Sexton
b. 11-9-1928; Newton, MA
d. 10-4-1974; Weston, MA (suicide)

Anne Sexton is remembered for her confessional poetry that expressed her long struggle with depression. She was awarded the 1967 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

Anne Sexton quotes ~
• “Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.”
• “It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.”
• “Even without wars, life is dangerous.”