Dr. Howard Baetzhold (1923-2012) was born in 1923 in Buffalo, New York. He received his A.B. and A.M. degrees from Brown University before serving in the United States Air Force during World War II. Upon his return, he began his professional career as the assistant director of the Veterans College at Brown, where he would meet his wife and have two children. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1953 Baetzhold was offered a position at Butler University in the English Department, where he taught first year English, world and American literature, poetry, creative writing, romanticism, literary criticism, and 18th century literature. Dr. Baetzhold served as the head of the English Department from 1981 to 1985 and was named the Rebecca Clifton Reade Professor of English Emeritus. He retired from Butler in 1988 but remained active with the university until his death in 2012. Dr. Baetzhold was an internationally known Mark Twain scholar.