"Foundations of English Literature"

Francis Barton Gummere, (March 6, 1855 - May 30, 1919) was born to Samuel J. Gummere and Elizabeth H. Barton in Burlington, New Jersey. He was half-brother of Caroline E. Gummere and John Gummere. In 1870, his family moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania. He became a student at Haverford College. He received his bachelor's from Harvard University in 1875 (the same year he received his master's from Haverford) and taught there for two years as an English instructor. He then ran the William Swain School for Advanced Work at New Bedford, Massachusetts, and later worked with the Penn Cord and Iron Works. After, he worked the law firm F.I. Gowan, and then as a teacher at the Providence, Rhode Island Friends’ School and later at Moses Brown School. He went on to become a professor of German and English at Haverford College in 1888. He studied abroad at the Universities of Berlin, Leipzig, and Jena, and received his Ph.D. in English from the University of Freiburg. He married Amelia Smith Mott in 1882, and he had three children: Richard M., Samuel J., and Francis Barton Jr.