Lucy S. Furman

Born in Henderson County, Kentucky, Lucy S. Furman spent part of her early life in Indiana before returning to Kentucky for school. Her stories first reached a wide audience in the 1890s, when Century Magazine published work that was later collected as Stories of a Sanctified Town.

Furman became closely associated with the Hindman Settlement School in eastern Kentucky, where she worked for about twenty years. Drawing on what she observed there, she wrote fiction that appeared in major magazines and in novels including Mothering on Perilous, Sight to the Blind, The Quare Women, and The Lonesome Road. Her writing is remembered as an important early influence on Appalachian literature.

Beyond her fiction, Furman was active in animal welfare work and spoke out against cruel trapping practices. Late in life she moved to Cranford, New Jersey, where she died in 1958.