Allen Ripley Foote

Allen Ripley Foote was an American editor and writer whose work ranged from war memoir to public policy. Sources available here identify him as an American editor and as the founder of the National Tax Association, showing how closely his writing was tied to civic and economic questions of his time.

He is especially noted today for Some of My War Stories, a firsthand account drawn from his Civil War service. The text describes him as having served first as a private in Company B of the 3rd Michigan Infantry and later as a second lieutenant in Company B of the 21st Michigan Infantry, giving his recollections the feel of lived experience rather than distant history.

Foote also published extensively on municipal government, taxation, labor, and constitutional questions, and library records list a large body of books, pamphlets, and articles under his name. That mix of personal memory and public argument makes his work appealing to listeners interested in both nineteenth-century history and the reform debates of the early twentieth century.