author
Mary Montgomery Borglum
1874–1955
Raised between the Ottoman Empire and the United States, she brought an unusually wide view of the world to her writing. Her work ranges from story collections to memoir and biography, with a special place in the history surrounding Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon Borglum.
1 Audiobook
Give the man room : The story of Gutzon Borglum
by Robert J. (Robert Joseph) Casey, Mary Montgomery Borglum
About the author
Born in Marash, in what is now Turkey, on November 21, 1874, Mary Montgomery Borglum was the daughter of American missionaries. Sources from PBS note that she later studied classics at Wellesley College, taught at a girls' school in Adana, and in 1901 was among the first two women to earn doctorates at Berlin.
She wrote under both Mary Montgomery Borglum and Mary Williams Montgomery. Public-domain and library records connect her with Told in the Gardens of Araby and with later books centered on her husband, sculptor Gutzon Borglum, including Give the Man Room and Gutzon Borglum; a brief sketch of his life and work.
Her life also placed her close to major episodes in American art history. PBS and Library of Congress materials describe her as an important presence in Gutzon Borglum's career and preserve her papers, including correspondence, diaries, and autobiographical writing. She died in 1955.