Category: Poets and Writers
First Women, Poets and Writers, Women in Business

Maria Ruiz de Burton

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First Female Mexican American Author to Write in English Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton is among the best remembered authors of nineteenth-century Mexican American literature. Fully bilingual, de Burton was the first female Mexican American to write novels in English: Who Would Have Thought It? and The Squatter and the Don. Early Years Though records are sparse, Maria Amparo Ruiz was born into an aristocratic Latino family in Loreto on the Baja California peninsula of Mexico. Her grandfather, Don Jose Manuel Ruiz, was sent to the frontier to assist in the founding of missions in Baja. Heading a large force of men, Ruiz left Loreto in 1780, and several missions were soon founded. For this, Ruiz was awarded a large…

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Poets and Writers

Mary Virginia Terhune

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Novelist and Author of Domestic Manuals Mary Virginia Terhune (1830–1922) was an American author of novels, short stories, biographies, travel narratives, cookbooks and domestic manuals whose career stretched across seven decades. She began her career writing articles at the age of 14, using various pen names, until 1853 when she settled on Marion Harland. Her first novel Alone sold more than 100,000 copies. Born December 21, 1830 in Dennisville, Virginia, Mary Virginia Hawes was the third of nine children born to Samuel Pierce and Judith Anna Smith Hawes. Terhune was home schooled until 1844, when her family moved to Richmond, Virginia, where she attended a girl’s seminary school for two years of formal education.
Poets and Writers, Women Settled the West

Susan Shelby Magoffin

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Pioneer Woman on the Santa Fe Trail Susan Shelby Magoffin was the young wife of a trader from the United States who traveled on the Santa Fe Trail in the late 1840s. She recorded her experiences in a diary – Down the Santa Fe Trail and Into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (1926) – which has been used extensively as a source for that period in history. Image: 7-foot tall statue sculpted by Ethan Houser Keystone Heritage Park El Paso, Texas Early Years Susan Shelby was born into a wealthy family on July 30, 1827 on their plantation near Danville, Kentucky. She was the granddaughter of Isaac Shelby, a hero of the American Revolution and the first…

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Journalists, Poets and Writers

Grace Greenwood

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First Woman Correspondent for the New York Times Sara Jane Lippincott (1823–1904) was an author, journalist and activist, better known by the pseudonym Grace Greenwood. One of the first women to gain access to the Congressional press galleries, she used the opportunity to advocate for social reform and women’s rights, while creating a path for future women correspondents. Throughout a career that lasted over half a century, Greenwood most often worked as a journalist. She and her writing were praised in many journals, including Female Prose Writers of America (1852), Female Poets of America (1859) and Eminent Women of the Age (1869), but she was often disliked for her strong opinions on women’s rights and the abolition of slavery.
Poets and Writers

Elizabeth Ellet

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Author of The Women of the American Revolution Elizabeth Ellet was an author and historian. She was the first writer to record the lives of women who had made significant contributions during the American Revolution. Ellet not only recovered the history of women of that era; she recognized the importance of preserving these stories, which had been ignored by other American historians. Early Years Elizabeth Fries Lummis was born October 18, 1818 in Sodus Point, New York. Her mother was Sarah Maxwell Lummis, daughter of Revolutionary War captain John Maxwell, who was lieutenant of the first company raised in Sussex County, New Jersey. He later joined the army of General George Washington as captain of a company of 100 volunteers…

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anne lynch botta
Poets and Writers

Anne Lynch Botta

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Poet and Literary Salon Hostess Anne Lynch Botta was a poet, sculptor and salon hostess in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The most well-known writers, actors and artists of the era were among the creative people who attended the gatherings Botta held at her home in New York City. Edgar Allan Poe read his early drafts of ‘The Raven’ there, while Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson discussed transcendentalism. Early life She was born Anne Charlotte Lynch in Bennington, Vermont to Patrick Lynch and Charlotte Gray Lynch. Her father took part in the United Irishmen Rebellion of 1798 in Dublin, for which he was imprisoned and then banished from Ireland. He came to the United States at the age of 18,…

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Famous Children, Poets and Writers

Susan Fenimore Cooper

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Author and Daughter of James Fenimore Cooper Susan Fenimore Cooper was a writer and amateur naturalist, who is best known for Rural Hours, her nature diary of Cooperstown, New York. She also wrote a novel, short stories, children’s stories, and dozens of magazine articles on a wide variety of subjects. Early Years Susan Augusta Fenimore Cooper was born on April 17, 1813 in Scarsdale, New York, the daughter of the novelist James Fenimore Cooper and Susan De Lancey Cooper. She was their second child, and the eldest to survive childhood. In the summer of 1813 the Coopers traveled to Cooperstown, New York, the settlement founded by James’ father, Judge William Cooper. Along the way they stopped to rest and Susan’s…

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Poets and Writers, Women in Education

Catherine Beecher

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A Pioneer in Women’s Education American author and educator, Catherine Beecher believed that a woman’s role as educator and moral guide for her family was the basis of a well-ordered society. While she might have balked at being called a feminist (she did not support suffrage), her new theories about a woman’s place contributed to a growing feminist attitude that a woman did not have to be weak and passive, but could be a strong and important member of her community. Early Years Catherine Beecher (also spelled Catharine) was born September 6, 1800 in East Hampton, New York to the prominent Beecher family, who greatly influenced American culture and politics during the late nineteenth century. Catherine was the eldest of…

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Poets and Writers

Frances Sargent Osgood

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Frances Sargent Osgood was one of the most popular women writers and poets of the mid-nineteenth century. Though some critics berated her writing as overly sentimental, Osgood achieved a wide readership and her fame was based on her success as an author, not merely for her connection to Edgar Allan Poe. Image: Frances Sargent Osgood and Edgar Allan Poe (painting of Poe by Fanny’s husband) Early Life Frances Sargent Locke was born on June 18, 1811 in Boston, Massachusetts to Joseph Locke, a wealthy merchant, and his second wife Mary. Fanny, as she was known, spent her early years in Hingham, Massachusetts, and probably received her formal education at home by private tutors, but she also attended the Boston Lyceum…

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Poets and Writers

Matilda Hoffman

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Washington Irving’s One and Only Love Though she died very young, Matilda Hoffman made such a deep impression on the young American author Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) that he mourned her passing for the rest of his life. Decades later, the mere mention of her name left him speechless. Sarah Matilda Hoffman was born in 1791, daughter of Josiah Ogden and Mary Colden Hoffman. Matilda, as she was known, grew up in Manhattan and Albany, New York. Her mother died when she was six years old and her father married Maria Fenno five years later and began a second family. Maria was only ten years older than Matilda.