Helen M. (Helen Maria) Winslow

Born in Westfield, Vermont, in 1851, Helen Maria Winslow built a wide-ranging career as an American editor, author, publisher, and journalist. She worked on Boston papers and magazines, and wrote under the pen name Aunt Philury as well as her own name.

Winslow is especially remembered for her editorial work in the world of women’s periodicals and organizations. She served as dramatic editor of The Beacon, edited women’s club departments for the Boston Transcript and The Delineator, and edited and published The Club Woman beginning in 1897. Her career connected literature, journalism, and the growing network of women’s clubs in the United States.

She also published an impressive range of books, from novels such as Salome Shepard, Reformer and A Woman for Mayor to nonfiction like The Woman of Tomorrow, Little Journeys in Literature, and Concerning Cats: My Own and Some Others. She died in 1938, leaving behind work that reflects both the professional world of publishing and the changing public role of women in her era.