Grace Arlington Owen

Grace Arlington Owen was an American writer and educator whose work appeared in schools, pageants, and teacher training circles in the early twentieth century. Records from Illinois State Normal University describe her as a teacher of reading from Delaware, Ohio, and note that before joining the faculty she had studied at Delaware College, assisted Professor Robert I. Fulton, and taught at Elmira College and the state normal school in Pittsburg, Kansas.

Her published work shows a strong interest in making history and biography accessible to younger readers. She co-authored Modern Americans with Chester Milton Sanford, wrote Modern Europeans with him as well, and published Nursery school education. She also wrote The wonderful story of Illinois, a pageant issued by the Illinois Centennial Commission, which suggests how comfortably she moved between classroom materials and public educational writing.

Owen was involved in campus cultural life too. Illinois State University archival material credits her with creating the Dramatics Club in 1909, a group that later became the Jesters. Even though detailed personal information about her is hard to confirm online, the surviving record points to a teacher-author who cared deeply about reading, performance, and education for children.