Archibald MacLeish was born in Glencoe, Illinois on May 7, 1892 to Martha Hillard and Andrew MacLeish, a dry goods merchant. After graduating from Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut he entered Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1911. He married Ada Hitchcock in 1916 and served in the United States Army from 1917-1919. He received his L.L.B. from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts and practiced law with Choate, Hall and Steward, Boston, Massachusetts, from 1920 -1923. After living in Paris, France from 1923-1928, he purchased Uphill Farm in Conway, Massachusetts. From 1929-1938, he was the editor of FORTUNE Magazine. MacLeish then held a number of federal appointments, including: Librarian of Congress, 1939-1944; Director, Office of Facts and Figures, War Department, 1941-1942; Assistant Director, Office of War Information, War Department, 1942-1943; Assistant Secretary of State for Cultural Affairs, 1944-1945. He served as Chairman of the American Delegation at the London conference of UNESCO in November of 1945. the primary purpose of which was to draft the constitution for UNESCO. From 1946-1948 he served as a member of the Executive Committee of the United States National Commission for UNESCO. In 1946, he was appointed Chairman of the American Delegation to the First General Conference of UNESCO in Paris, France and was elected the first American member of the Executive Board of UNESCO. Leaving government service, MacLeish became the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1949-1962; the President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1953-1956; and Simpson Lecturer at Amherst College, 1963-1967. He died in Boston, Massachusetts on April 20, 1982.