Thomas Nelson Page

Thomas Nelson Page (1853-1922), American author and diplomat, born in Hanover County, Virginia. After finishing his degree at the University of Virginia law school in 1874, Page practiced law in Richmond from 1876 to 1893. In 1876 he sold a poem to Scribner's Monthly and in 1884 attracted wide attention with his story “Marse Chan”, published in Century Illustrated Magazine. Thereafter Page was a recognized apologist for the Old South and a spokesman for the Virginia gentry. The best known of his 25 volumes include Two Little Confederates (1888), Red Rock (1898), and the short stories of In Ole Virginia (1887). In 1893, after his second marriage, Page moved to Washington D.C. There he became a confidant of President Theodore Roosevelt, for whom Page, a Democrat, helped distribute federal patronage in Virginia. In 1912 Page supported Woodrow Wilson against Roosevelt and served from 1913 to 1919 as ambassador to Italy.