The Devil and Tom Walker Washington Irving

Literary reputation

Irving is largely credited as the first American Man of Letters and the first to earn his living solely by his pen. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow acknowledged Irving's role in promoting American literature in December 1859: "We feel a just pride in his renown as an author, not forgetting that, to his other claims upon our gratitude, he adds also that of having been the first to win for our country an honourable name and position in the History of Letters".[99]

Irving perfected the American short story[100] and was the first American writer to set his stories firmly in the United States, even as he poached from German or Dutch folklore. He is also generally credited as one of the first to write in the vernacular and without an obligation to presenting morals or being didactic in his short stories, writing stories simply to entertain rather than to enlighten.[101] He also encouraged many would-be writers. As George William Curtis noted, there "is not a young literary aspirant in the country, who, if he ever personally met Irving, did not hear from him the kindest words of sympathy, regard, and encouragement".[102]

Edgar Allan Poe, on the other hand, felt that Irving should be given credit for being an innovator but that the writing itself was often unsophisticated. "Irving is much over-rated", Poe wrote in 1838, "and a nice distinction might be drawn between his just and his surreptitious and adventitious reputation—between what is due to the pioneer solely, and what to the writer".[103] A critic for the New-York Mirror wrote: "No man in the Republic of Letters has been more overrated than Mr. Washington Irving".[104] Some critics claimed that Irving catered to British sensibilities, and one critic charged that he wrote "of and for England, rather than his own country".[105]

Other critics were more supportive of Irving's style. William Makepeace Thackeray was the first to refer to Irving as the "ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old",[106] a banner picked up by writers and critics throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. "He is the first of the American humorists, as he is almost the first of the American writers", wrote critic H.R. Hawless in 1881, "yet belonging to the New World, there is a quaint Old World flavor about him".[107] Early critics often had difficulty separating Irving the man from Irving the writer. "The life of Washington Irving was one of the brightest ever led by an author", wrote Richard Henry Stoddard, an early Irving biographer.[108] Later critics, however, began to review his writings as all style with no substance. "The man had no message", said critic Barrett Wendell.[109]

As a historian, Irving's reputation had fallen out of favor but then gained a resurgence. "With the advent of 'scientific' history in the generations that followed his, Irving's historical writings lapsed into disregard and disrespect. To late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians, including John Franklin Jameson, G. P. Gooch, and others, these works were demiromances, worthy at best of veiled condescension. However, more recently several of Irving's histories and biographies have again won praise for their reliability as well as the literary skill with which they were written. Specifically, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus; Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains; and Life of George Washington have earned the respect of scholars whose writings on those topics we consider authoritative in our generation: Samuel Eliot Morison, Bernard DeVoto, Douglas Southall Freeman".[110]

Impact on American culture

Irving popularized the nickname "Gotham" for New York City,[111] and he is credited with inventing the expression "the almighty dollar". The surname of his fictional Dutch historian Diedrich Knickerbocker is generally associated with New York and New Yorkers, as found in New York's professional basketball team The New York Knickerbockers.

One of Irving's most lasting contributions to American culture is in the way that Americans celebrate Christmas. In his 1812 revisions to A History of New York, he inserted a dream sequence featuring St. Nicholas soaring over treetops in a flying wagon, an invention which others dressed up as Santa Claus. In his five Christmas stories in The Sketch Book, Irving portrayed an idealized celebration of old-fashioned Christmas customs at a quaint English manor which depicted English Christmas festivities that he experienced while staying in England, which had largely been abandoned.[112] He used text from The Vindication of Christmas (London 1652) of old English Christmas traditions,[113] and the book contributed to the revival and reinterpretation of the Christmas holiday in the United States.[114]

Irving introduced the erroneous idea that Europeans believed the world to be flat prior to the discovery of the New World in his biography of Christopher Columbus,[115] yet the flat-Earth myth has been taught in schools as fact to many generations of Americans.[116][117] American painter John Quidor based many of his paintings on scenes from the works of Irving about Dutch New York, including such paintings as Ichabod Crane Flying from the Headless Horseman (1828), The Return of Rip Van Winkle (1849), and The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane (1858).[118][119]

Memorials

The village of Dearman, New York, changed its name to "Irvington" in 1854 to honor Washington Irving, who was living in nearby Sunnyside, which is preserved as a museum.[120] Influential residents of the village prevailed upon the Hudson River Railroad, which had reached the village by 1849,[121] to change the name of the train station to "Irvington", and the village incorporated as Irvington on April 16, 1872.[122][123][124]

The town of Knickerbocker, Texas, was founded by two of Irving's nephews, who named it in honor of their uncle's literary pseudonym.[125] The city of Irving, Texas, states that it is named for Washington Irving.[126]

Irvington, New Jersey is also named after Irving. It was incorporated on March 27, 1874, from parts of Clinton Township (Clinton Township is now part of Newark, New Jersey since 1902).

Irving Street in San Francisco is named after him.[127]

The Irving Park neighborhood in Chicago is named for him as well, though the original name of the subdivision was Irvington and then later Irving Park before annexation to Chicago.[128]

Gibbons Memorial Park, located in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, is located on Irving Cliff, which was named after him.[129]

The Irvington neighborhood in Indianapolis is also one of the many communities named after him.[130]

Irving College (1838–90) in Irving College, Tennessee, was named for Irving.[131]

There is a statue of Irving in Granada, Spain.[132]

The Village Of North Tarrytown, New York, changed its name to "Sleepy Hollow" in 1996 to honor Washington Irving and capitalize on the popularity of the story "The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow"[133]