author
Madeleine Black
b. 1873
A civic-minded early 20th-century writer, she tackled practical public questions with a reformer’s energy. Her surviving work points to an author interested in markets, cities, and social improvement.
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About the author
Writing as Madeleine Black and also as Mrs. Elmer Black, she is credited with A Terminal Market System, New York's Most Urgent Need: Some Observations, Comments, and Comparisons of European Markets, a work published in the early 1900s and later preserved by Project Gutenberg. Another title associated with her is Civilize the Nations.
Catalog and authority records connect her with the fuller name Ida Madeleine Powell Black, and list her birth year as 1871 rather than 1873. Because the historical record surfaced here is brief and somewhat inconsistent, it's safest to say that she was an American author and public-minded writer active in the early 20th century.
Her known work suggests a strong interest in reform, especially the organization of urban food markets and larger civic questions. Even from the limited record, she comes across as a writer who used books to argue for better systems and more thoughtful public policy.