Joel Barlow life and biography

Joel Barlow was an American poet, diplomat and politician. In his own time, Barlow was well-known for the epic Vision of Columbus. Modern readers may be more familiar with "The Hasty Pudding" (1793). He also drafted the Treaty of Tripoli, which includes the phrase: "the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion".

One of the Hartford Wits, became a merchant and also a diplomat for the early U.S. republic. He was counsel to Algiers, and involved in negotiation with Barbary pirates and brought back the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797. Barlow died from exposure during Napoleon's retreat from Russia, while on another mission of U.S. diplomacy.

More famous than Barlow himself is Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club, a formerly-secret society formed in 1795 whose reputation seems to stem from a drag revue held annually since 1844. A man and woman of the year are named, and they participate in the single-performance revue to receive a faux-gold pot to hold their pudding. Hasty pudding is a broth soup with dissolved cornmeal in it.

Author of books:

Vision of Columbus (1787, poetry)
Advice to the Privileged Orders (1792, essay)
The Hasty Pudding (1793, poetry)
The Columbiad (1807, poetry, revised from Vision of Columbus)

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