Profile of the Day: Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Today we remember author Ernest Hemingway, who was born on this day in 1899.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was bon on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois to Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, a physician, and Grace Hall, an opera singer and painter.

During World War I, Hemingway enlisted with the Red Cross to become an ambulance driver. While at the Italian front, he was severely injured and spent months recuperating in a hospital in Milan. It was during this time he fell in love with Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky. The couple had plans to marry in America. however, after returning home, Hemingway received a letter from Agnes telling him that she had become engaged to an Italian officer. His experiences during the war and his ill-fated relationship with Agnes would become the inspiration to one of Hemingway’s finest works, A Farewell to Arms.

Today, Hemingway is remembered as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 and many of his books are considered some of American literature’s greatest classics.

Although he lived a life of many adventures, Hemingway struggled with depression and various health issues. On July 2, 1961, Hemingway died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

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Image: NARA