M. Louise (Maria Louise) Greene

Born in Virginia in 1865, Maria Louise Greene became a teacher and later served as principal of the Howard Colored Orphan Asylum in Brooklyn. She was active in Black women's club work and education, combining public service with writing that drew on community life and oral tradition.

She is best known for The Value of Useless Knowledge and Other Essays and especially The Negro in Virginia, as well as The Negro in Virginia's companion work in folklore, The Broom Squire and Other Tales, one of the early published collections of African American folk stories by a Black woman. Her work is often noted for recording speech, humor, and customs that might otherwise have gone unpreserved.

Today, Greene is valued both as a literary figure and as a documentarian of Black life in the post-Civil War South. Her writing offers modern readers a direct sense of the stories, social ideals, and educational aspirations circulating in her community.