Fannie Hurst

Born in Hamilton, Ohio, in 1889 and raised in St. Louis, she graduated from Washington University in 1909 and moved to New York in 1911 to build a writing career. She went on to become one of the most widely read and best-paid female authors of the early 20th century, publishing more than 300 short stories as well as popular novels.

Her fiction often paired romance and family drama with the issues of her day. Books such as Lummox, Back Street, and Imitation of Life were major bestsellers, and several of her works were adapted for film, helping keep her stories in the public eye for decades.

She was also known for her public activism. Alongside her writing, she supported feminism, African American equality, and New Deal causes, bringing the same sense of social concern to her public life that readers found in her fiction.