In 1888, a St. Paul Globe exposé of women’s working conditions penned by “Eva Gay” launched the career of Eva McDonald Valesh, a young writer. During the time that she lived in the state, Valesh left a big impression on Minnesota journalism, politics, and labor organizing.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Evangeline Whipple used her wealth to improve the lives of women, people of color, and the poor. She supported social justice for Native Americans in Minnesota, for African Americans in Florida, and for villagers and World War I refugees in Bagni di Lucca, Italy.
Mother Benedicta (Sybilla) Riepp was the founder of the Roman Catholic Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict in North America. By 1946, Saint Benedict’s Monastery was the largest community of Benedictine Sisters in the world.
In the 1970s, Maude became concerned that Ojibwe people were forgetting their history and culture. Inspired to make a change, she set out on a mission to lift her memories from her mind and record them on paper. She enlisted the help of scholarly writers and produced several books: When I Was A Little Girl (1976), At The End of the Trail (1978), What My Grandmother Told Me (1983), and Portage Lake (1991).
Distinguished playwright, short-story writer, poet and painter.
Nisei inmate, librarian, poet, and memoirist.
Acclaimed poet, feminist writer, and human rights activist. Much of Yamada’s work draws on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Best known for her Betsy-Tacy series of thirteen books, she authored six historical novels for adults as well as five additional books for children.
Laura Ingalls Wilder was sixty-five when she published Little House in the Big Woods, a novel for young readers inspired by her childhood in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Her book, and the others that followed, made her an icon of children’s literature.
From the 1890s through the 1950s, Frances Densmore researched and recorded the music of Native Americans. Through more than twenty books, 200 articles, and some 2,500 Graphophone recordings, she preserved important cultural traditions that might otherwise have been lost.