Hattie Greene Lockett

author

Hattie Greene Lockett

1880–1962

A pioneering Arizona writer, teacher, rancher, and clubwoman, she turned firsthand knowledge of Western life and Indigenous traditions into books, poems, and stories. Her life joined public service, scholarship, and practical work on the range in a way that still feels remarkable.

0 Audiobooks

About the author

Born in Bushnell, Illinois, in 1880, she moved to Scottsdale with her family in 1897 and soon began teaching in the area. After further study at Tempe Normal School, she taught in several local schools before marrying sheep rancher and territorial legislator Henry Claiborne Lockett in 1905.

After her husband's death in 1921, she kept the family ranch going and earned respect for her knowledge of sheep raising and grazing issues. She also organized community groups, including the Washington Women’s Club, and became known for her leadership as well as her work in ranching.

Later, she returned to college, earned a master’s degree in archaeology in 1932, and turned her thesis into the book The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi: First Hand Accounts of Customs, Traditions and Beliefs of the Northern Arizona Indian Tribe. From the 1940s until her death in 1962, she wrote poems and short stories, and she was later inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame.