MacMinn, Ney

Biography

Ney Lannes MacMinn was born on May 11, 1894 in Brockway, Pennsylvania, the eldest of eight children of a Methodist minister. He studied as an undergraduate at Westminster College in western Pennsylvania and at the University of Toulouse in southern France at the conclusion of World War I, in which he had served with the 15th US Engineers for two years. In 1924, he received his MA in English from the University of Illinois, where he studied under Stuart Sherman. In 1928, he received his Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University under Franklyn B. Snyder, whose assistant he became for nine years, until Snyder left the English Department to become University President in 1939.

MacMinn was Instructor in English at Northwestern from 1925-1929; Assistant Professor of English, 1929-1944; Associate Professor of English, 1944-1960, and Professor Emeritus, 1960-1967. In 1949 he was a Visiting Professor to the University of Peurto Rico.

His research interests included William Morris and John Stuart Mill and he wrote several books, including Creative Thinkers, a three volume series of critical and biographical studies of twenty eminent 19th century English writers. He taught freshman composition, creative writing and American, Victorian and contemporary literature at Northwestern.

MacMinn was married and divorced twice. His second marriage was to Cecilia Abbott in 1941.

In 1960, he retired to a houseboat on the Seine Rive in Paris, France, where he lived until his death on August 1, 1967.

Originally MacMinn spelled his name McMinn, but at some point before 1949, he changed the spelling to MacMinn.

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