Amos N. Wilder

Amos Niven Wilder (September 18, 1895 Madison, Wisconsin - May 4, 1993) was an American poet, minister, and theology professor.

Life
His father was a journalist with a doctorate from Yale, worked at the U.S. consulate in China. His mother was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. His brother was novelist Thornton Wilder, and his sisters were poet Charlotte Wilder and philanthropist Janet Wilder Dakin.

He studied two years at Oberlin College (1913–1915), but volunteered in the Ambulance Field Service; he was awarded the Croix de Guerre. In November 1917, he enlisted in the U.S. Field Artillery as a corporal.

In 1920, he graduated from Yale University. In college, he was an inter-collegiate doubles champion tennis player, and he played at Wimbledon in 1922, with his partner, Lee Wiley. He served as secretary to Albert Schweitzer lecturing at Oxford University, where he was studying at Mansfield College, (1921–1923). He completed his study for the ministry at Yale in 1924.

Battle Retrospect, was a volume of verse he wrote about his experiences in World War I; it was reprinted in 1971 by AMS Press.

Wilder was ordained in 1926, and served in a Congregationalist church in North Conway, New Hampshire He received his doctorate from Yale in 1933.

He married Catharine Kerlin in 1935. They had a daughter, Catharine Wilder Guiles, and a son, Amos Tappan Wilder.

He taught for 11 years at the Chicago Theological Seminary and the University of Chicago, and served as president of the Chicago Society of Biblical Research in 1949-1950. Wilder joined Harvard University in 1954 as Hollis Professor of Divinity. In 1962 he was part of the first board of directors for the Society for the Arts, Religion and Contemporary Culture. In 1963, Wilder was named emeritus faculty. His papers are held at Harvard.

Recognition

 * Golden Rose Award
 * 1923 Yale Series of Younger Poets, Battle Retrospect

Poetry

 * ; AMS Press, 1971.