Chronology
Harold Hart Crane was born on July 21, 1899, in Garrettsville, Ohio, the only child of Clarence Arthur and Grace Hart Crane. In 1909, after a few years in Warren, Ohio, the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. There Crane attended public high school, while his father developed a confectionery manufacturing and sales business. The boy also travelled with his family to the Isle of Pines, Cuba, and through parts of Western United States and Canada.
Crane’s interest in writing and art evidenced itself at an early age. His first published poem (“C 33”) appeared in Bruno’s Weekly (N.Y.), Sept. 23, 1916, while his first prose, a letter, was printed in The Pagan (N.Y.), Oct. 1916. Thereafter, his devotion to poetry superseded any other concerns.
During 1916 and 1917, Crane’s parents separated and were divorced. Symbolic of the effect on their son was his assumption of the maternal surname “Hart” as his own first name. In 1916, when the divorce actions were initiated, Crane left for New York City alone. There he soon became familiar with writers, artists, and editors. He remained in New York, despite a few return visits to Cleveland, until the late Fall of 1919.
At that time, he returned to Cleveland to work for his father and to live with his mother and maternal grandmother, both of whom had been Christian Scientists for many years. Dissatisfaction with his working and living arrangements led him, in 1921, to leave his father’s employ and, in 1923, to move permanently to New York City.
By dint of night-school courses and practical experience, he had been able to earn his living in Cleveland during 1922 as an advertising copywriter. After a few months of this in New York, he resigned his job and left for Woodstock, New York. Thereafter, his periods of employment grew shorter until eventually he was generally without an income... his movements between country and city were frequent.
He had first conceived of his major poem, The Bridge, in February 1923, but was unable to work on it as he wished. Accordingly, his first book of poems, White Buildings, appeared late in 1926 without any sections of that poem. Fortunately, Otto H. Kahn granted him a sum of money to work on The Bridge during 1926, and Crane wrote much of the poem in Patterson, New York and on the Isle of Pines, Cuba. With his father’s help, he wrote more in 1927; finally, in 1929, under the impetus of publication offered by Caresse and Harry Crosby, he completed the poem. It appeared early in 1930 in a Paris and a New York edition, and was generally acclaimed as one of the remarkable poetic achievements of our time.
In 1927 and 1928, Crane stayed in California as the companion of a wealthy invalid; in 1928, a bequest made available to him after his grandmother’s death permitted him to travel in England and France. When he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing in 1931, he left the United States for Mexico, where he hoped to write a never-initiated poem on Cortez.
With the exception of a brief return to the United States to attend his father’s funeral, the remainder of his life was spent in Mexico City and its environs. On April 24th, 1932, he sailed for New York from Vera Cruz on the S.S. Orizaba. Three days later, on the 27th, he either jumped or fell into the Caribbean Sea and was drowned. His body was not recovered.