Edwin Markham was born Charles Edward Anson Markham in Oregon City, Oregon, on April 23, 1852. He moved to northern California with his mother when he was four. He graduated from San Jose State Normal School in 1872. He married his first wife, Annie Cox, in 1875, and held a number of positions at schools in northern and central California. He divorced Annie in 1884; in 1887 he married his second wife, Caroline Bailey. They parted after only a few years, and Markham married his third and final wife, Anna Catherine Murphy, whom he met while living in Oakland, in 1898.

Between 1880, when Markham’s poetry was first published, and 1899, when the San Francisco Chronicle published “The Man with the Hoe,” Markham continued his career in education while also focusing on his development and success as a writer. “The Man with the Hoe” brought Markham into the national spotlight as a poet, as its themes resonated with the populist sentiments of the time; but his fame peaked two years later with the publication of his book Lincoln and Other Poems. In 1901, Markham moved with his family (he and Anna had a son, Virgil) to Staten Island, where Markham remained for the rest of his life. Shortly after moving to New York, Markham met Florence Hamilton, the lady who would serve as his secretary for sixteen years. Markham continued to write poetry and lecture on the literary lecture circuit until he suffered a debilitating stroke in 1936. In 1937 he was declared mentally incompetent by a court in New York, and in 1938 Anna passed away. After her passing, Markham was largely confined to his house until his death on March 7, 1940. He was buried in Los Angeles.