Termed "the first of the columnists," Eugene Field is best known today as the poet of children. However, his poems and stories originally appeared in print in columns written for newspapers in St. Louis, St. Joseph, and Kansas City, Missouri; Denver; and Chicago. It was in the latter city that Field made "Sharps and Flats" one of the most copied columns in the nation. While Field was not the first newspaperman to write paragraphs that filled a regular column, he certainly "had a strong influence on the later development of an interesting feature of American Journalism", according to the Dictionary of American Biography. Field's practice "differed from that of most of his predecessors; and while his audacious indulgence in personalities could not safely be followed", he did made such writing popular in America.

In some respects, Field's career reminds one of other noted literary figures, such as William...