author
Louise Bryant
1885–1936
A sharp-eyed journalist and outspoken feminist, she became one of the best-known American witnesses to the Russian Revolution. Her writing mixed political passion, first-hand reporting, and the restless energy of the early 20th century.
1 Audiobook
Mirrors of Moscow
by Louise Bryant
About the author
Born in San Francisco in 1885, Louise Bryant grew up partly in the American West and studied at the University of Oregon. In Portland she worked as a writer and became active in progressive and feminist circles before moving into the bohemian literary world that shaped her early career.
She is best remembered for her reporting from revolutionary Russia, where she witnessed the upheavals of 1917 and wrote vivid, sympathetic accounts of the Bolsheviks and the people around them. Her best-known book, Six Red Months in Russia, drew on that experience and helped make her a widely discussed public figure.
Bryant was also connected to other major writers and radicals of her time, including John Reed, whom she married in 1916. She continued writing journalism, books, and commentary through the 1920s, and she died in Paris in 1936.