Jane Burr

Born Rosalind Mae Guggenheim in Cleburne, Texas, in 1882, Jane Burr was the pen name of a journalist, poet, playwright, and novelist who built a varied literary career in the early 1900s. She studied for two years at Washington University in St. Louis, then worked for The St. Louis Star and The St. Louis Republic before becoming known under her pseudonym.

Burr was active in New York’s Greenwich Village circles in the 1910s and 1920s, where she wrote on women’s rights, marriage, dress reform, birth control, and changing sexual attitudes. Archival and historical sources also connect her with The Masses and note that in 1922 she traveled around the world for United Press, reporting on the lives and status of women in different countries.

Her better-known books include Letters of a Dakota Divorcee, City Dust, The Glorious Hope, The Passionate Spectator, Marble and Mud, and The Queen Is Dead. Later in life she lived in Woodstock, New York, where she opened her farmhouse to writers and ran an antique shop; she died in 1958.