Charles K. Tuckerman

Charles Keating Tuckerman (March 11, 1827 – February 26, 1896) was an American diplomat and writer.

Education/work

A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Tuckerman was educated at that city's Latin School. After spending his 20s working overseas, he returned to the United States in 1856, settling in New York City, where he directed the New York Institution for the Blind.

President Andrew Johnson asked Tuckerman in 1867 to be the American minister resident to Greece, because of Tuckerman's experience overseas. The Senate refused initially to confirm Tuckerman's nomination, but finally approved it in 1868.^[1] Tuckerman was the first American diplomat ever posted to Greece. While there, he helped improve trading relations between Greece and the United States. His resignation in 1871 was delayed for six months by President Ulysses S. Grant, who wanted to keep Tuckerman on the job.

Tuckerman returned to the United States after his Greek posting, but died in Florence, Italy.

Writings

Tuckerman wrote three books:

• The Greeks of To-day (published in 1872 by G.P. Putnam & Sons)^[2]
• Miscellaneous Poems (published in 1880 by Moxon, Saunders and Co.)^[3]
• Personal Recollections of Notable People at Home and Abroad (published in 1895 in two volumes by Dodd Mead)^[4]

Family

Tuckerman's brother was the author Henry Tuckerman.

Charles Tuckerman married Mary Fleming in 1858. Their son Arthur Lyman Tuckerman (1861-1892)^[5] was an architect who wrote three books: A Short History of Architecture (1887),^[6] Design (1891),^[7] and Selections of Works of Architecture and Sculpture Belonging Chiefly to the Period of the Renaissance in Italy (1891).^[8]

External links

• Google Books version of the 1910 National Cyclopaedia of American Biography
• "Political characteristics of the modern Greeks," an article written by Charles Tuckerman for Harper's Magazine in 1872.
• Design by Arthur Lyman Tuckerman, digitized by Internet Archive

References