Oscar D. Kaplan

1900 - 1964  (63 years)

• Name	Oscar D. Kaplan
  Birth	29 Dec 1900	Stara (Staraya) Syniava, Kmelnytskyi Oblast, Ukraine   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Death	10 Oct 1964	New York, New York, New York   [1]
  Burial	Mount Hope Cemetery, Hastings-On-Hudson, Westchester, New York   [1]
  Person ID	I38408	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others | Ancestor of AW
  Last Modified	19 Sep 2022

  
  

  Father	Mouzya Kaplan,   b. 1880
  Mother	Chana Rapaport
  Family ID	F22560	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Agnes Imogene Smith,   b. 4 Mar 1903, Peoria, Peoria, Illinois d. 8 Apr 1954, New York, New York, New York (Age 51 years)
  Marriage	23 Sep 1922	New York, New York, New York   [2, 3]
  Children	+ 1. (Private)
  Family ID	F22558	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	19 Sep 2022

  
  

• Notes

  Born in Ukraine with the surname Kaplan, he emigrated to New York at the age of seven, and later changed his surname to Williams. As Oscar Williams he was a published poet, winning the Yale Younger Poets prize in 1920, but he became best known as a poetry anthologist. From poetryfoundation.org: Poet and influential anthologist Oscar Williams was born Oscar Kaplan to Russian parents and became fluent in Russian, Yiddish, and Hebrew. Publishers rejected his early poems, and at his sister’s suggestion, he took the pen name Oscar Williams, which he used for the rest of his career. He worked in advertising for 16 years before turning his attention to poetry full-time. Williams’s collections include The Golden Darkness (1921), which was chosen for the Yale Series of Younger Poets; Hibernalia (1938); and The Man Coming Toward You (1940). As an anthologist, he is responsible for the New Poets series, War Poets (1945), and the Little Treasury series, which helped bring attention to the work of such poets as John Berryman and Dylan Thomas. Williams died in New York City. Selections of his papers are held at the Lilly Library at Indiana University, Princeton University, and the Houghton Library at Harvard University. The Oscar Williams and Gene Derwood Fund, disbursed by the New York Community Trust, supports artists in need.

  
  

• Sources

  [S6651] Find a Grave page for Oscar D. Williams. [S6651] Find a Grave page for Oscar D. Williams., year only. [S3065] New York, New York, Marriage Indexes 1866-1937, on ancestry.com.