Alice Duer Miller

Born in New York on July 28, 1874, she studied mathematics at Barnard College and began writing professionally after her family lost its fortune. That practical start shaped a remarkably varied career that included poetry, novels, newspaper writing, plays, and screen work.

She is especially remembered for her lively, pointed writing in support of women's suffrage. Her verses for the New York Tribune, later collected in Are Women People?, used humor and satire to challenge the arguments against women's voting rights and helped make political debate feel immediate and readable.

Later in life, she found another wide readership with The White Cliffs in 1940, a verse narrative set against wartime Britain that became a major bestseller. She died in 1942, leaving behind work that could be graceful, funny, and politically sharp all at once.