Edwin Mims was an American university Professor of English literature. He served as the Chair of the English Department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee for thirty years from 1912 to 1942, and he taught many members of the Fugitives and the Southern Agrarians, two literary movements in the South. He was a staunch opponent of lynching, and a practicing Methodist.
Mims began his career at his alma mater, Vanderbilt University, where he became an assistant professor in 1892. He was a professor of English at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and later at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The second Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, James Hampton Kirkland, convinced him to return to his alma mater to teach. He went on to serve as the Chair of the English Department at Vanderbilt University from 1912 to 1942. One of his requirements was to ask his students to learn a thousand verses of poetry by heart. He also asked students to write an autobiographical essay each year. He wrote a history of Vanderbilt University as well as of Chancellor Kirkland. Some of his students included Donald Davidson, Robert Penn Warren, Cleanth Brooks, Andrew Nelson Lytle, Allen Tate, Merrill Moore and Jesse Stuart. Stuart's Beyond Dark Hills, was the direct result of one of Mims's assignments ; it was published in 1938. During his tenure as Chair, he wrote to Chancellor Kirkland to discourage him to match the offer that Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio had made to his colleague John Crowe Ransom, so that Ransom would leave for Ohio instead. However, Allen Tate tried to expose his hypocrisy as Mims assured Ransom he would be welcome to stay in his department at Vanderbilt. Another colleague, Lyle H. Lanier, agreed that this demonstrated Mims's hypocrisy. A progressive, Mims became vocal in his opposition to lynching. He established the Law and Order League, an anti-lynching organization. He also addressed the New York Southern Society in New York City, where he reiterated his opposition to lynching. His 1926 book entitled The Advancing South was a call to action for progressives in the South. It was reviewed favourably by Alain Leroy Locke in . Mims served as President of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools for Southern States, later known as the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, in 1902. He then served on its Executive Committee. He lectured at the Chautauqua Institution in 1912-1942. He was also a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and served on the joint hymn book commission between the Methodist Episcopal Church, North and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1902-1903.
