Term: Nye, Edgar Wilson ("Bill Nye") 1850 - 1896

Definition:

newspaperman, author, humorist, b. Shirley, Piscataquis County, Maine. He moved with his parents to Wisconsin in 1852, settling on a farm near River Falls. His schooling was intermittent; he studied for a time in an academy in River Falls, later read law in Chippewa Falls, and shortly before leaving the state was unsuccessful with a short-lived newspaper venture in Grantsburg. In 1876 he moved to Laramie City (now Laramie), Wyoming Territory. There he was admitted to the bar, although he did not practice, and served for several years as justice of the peace. In 1881 he founded the Laramie Boomerang, edited this paper from 1881 to 1884, and began to achieve recognition for his humorous columns. Advised to move to a lower altitude because of his health, he returned to Wisconsin in 1884, and for two years farmed near Hudson. In 1886 he moved to New York, where he joined the staff of the N.Y. World, and his fame as a humorist soon became nationwide. From 1886 to 1890 he toured the lecture circuit with James Whitcomb Riley, and later with other lecturers. As a writer and humorist of the late 19th century, Nye, with Mark Twain and Artemus Ward, is recognized as contributing a distinctive, frontier type of American humor, noted for its broad kindliness and hyperbole. He was the author of numerous books and articles, among the most famous of which are Bill Nye and Boomerang (1881), Forty Liars and other Lies (1882), and Bill Nye's History of the United States (1894). Troubled by ill health since his days in Wyoming, Nye moved to Arden, N.C., in 1891 where he died five years later. Dict. Amer. Biog.; F. W. Nye, ed., Bill Nye (New York, 1926); N. O. Rush, ed., Letters of E. W. Nye (Laramie, Wyo., 1950); N.Y. Times, Feb. 23, 1896.

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