Daniel Webster's 1840 Whig Convention Rock

City of Troy, NY

In the 1830s and '40s the restless young Herman Melville lived in this Troy-area home, and it was here that he first turned his South Seas adventures into prose. His earliest books, the Polynesian tales 'Typee' and 'Omoo,' were completed in these rooms years before 'Moby-Dick' would make—and then nearly unmake—his reputation. The house marks the workshop of a writer still finding his voice.

City of Troy, NY

This monument honors Emma Hart Willard, who in 1821 founded on this spot the Troy Female Seminary — the first permanent institution in America devoted to the advanced education of women. At a time when higher learning was considered unsuitable and even dangerous for girls, Willard taught mathematics, science, history, and philosophy to young women, proving they could master subjects reserved for men. Her graduates fanned out to become teachers themselves, multiplying her influence across the country. Erected in 1895 by her former pupils, the monument calls the gratitude of educated women her most enduring memorial.

Amherst, MA · est. 2009

The Jones Library in Amherst was one of the earliest and most devoted collectors of Robert Frost's work, a bond nurtured by librarian Charles Green during the years the poet lived and taught in the town. Frost, four times a Pulitzer winner, drew much of his verse from the New England landscape around Amherst. The site is dedicated as a Literary Landmark in honor of that long friendship.

Amherst, MA · est. 1963

This Amherst house was the lifelong home of Emily Dickinson, the reclusive poet who, in the 1850s and 1860s, quietly wrote nearly 1,800 poems that almost no one saw in her lifetime. Working in near-total privacy, she forged a startlingly modern voice of dashes, slant rhyme, and compressed intensity. The federal government has recognized the home as a National Historic Landmark for its exceptional value to American history.