The Series: With lamp post dotted intersections, the North-South streets are named alphabetically in honor of historically notable authors. This ad-hoc series was created to bring awareness to the architecture, authors and alphabatation of Loma Portal.
George William Curtis (February 24, 1824 – August 31, 1892) was an American writer and public speaker, born in Providence, Rhode Island. From 1846 to 1850, he spent much time in Europe, Egypt and Syria.
Curtis returned from Europe in 1850, attractive, accomplished, and ambitious for literary distinction. He settled on Staten Island and instantly plunged into the whirl of life in New York, obtained a post on the Tribune, became a popular lecturer, started work on Nile Notes of a Howadji (1851. He wrote for Putnam's and became an associate editor along with Parke Godwin and managing editor Charles Frederick Briggs; the three also collaborated on a gift book called The Homes of American Authors (1853).
Curtis produced a number of volumes, composed of essays written for Putnam's and for Harper's Weekly, which came in rapid succession from his pen. The chief of these were the Potiphar Papers (1853), a satire on the fashionable society of the day; and Prue and I (1856), a pleasantly sentimental, fancifully tender and humorous study of life. In 1855 he married Anna Shaw, daughter of abolitionist Francis Shaw. In the period just preceding the Civil War, he was involved in the founding of the Republican Party, and made his first important speech on the questions of the day at Wesleyan University in 1856; he engaged actively in John C. Fremont's presidential campaign of that year and was soon recognized not only as an effective public speaker, but also as one of the ablest, most high-minded, and most trustworthy leaders of public opinion.
In 1862 George William Curtis delivered his "Doctrine of Liberty" address to the Phi beta Kappa Society at Harvard, on behalf of President Lincoln, who was encouraging support for the Emancipation Proclamation. In it, he laid out the intellectual foundations for the purpose of American education that would last another thirty years, and public schools, nearly one hundred.
In 1863 he became the political editor of Harper's Weekly, which was highly influential in shaping public opinion. From month to month he contributed to Harper's Monthly, under the title of "The Easy Chair," brief essays on topics of social and literary interest. His service to the Republican party was such, that he was offered several nominations to office, but he refused all such offers, preferring to serve the country as editor and public speaker.
In 1871 he was appointed, by President Ulysses S. Grant, to chair the commission on the reform of the civil service. Its report was the foundation of every effort since made for the purification and regulation of the service and for the destruction of political patronage. In 1884 he refused to support James G. Blaine for the presidency, and broke with the Republican party, of which he had been a founder and leader. From that time he stood as the typical independent in politics.