author
Miriam Michelson
1870–1942
A sharp, fearless voice from the American West, she built a career in journalism and fiction while pushing against the limits placed on women of her era. Her work is remembered for its wit, energy, and strong-minded heroines.
2 Audiobooks
In the Bishop's Carriage
by Miriam Michelson
The Madigans
by Miriam Michelson
About the author
Born in California in 1870 and raised in Virginia City, Nevada, she was the daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants and the sister of physicist Albert A. Michelson. She became one of the early women to make a name in hard-news reporting in San Francisco before expanding into fiction and magazine writing.
Her novels and stories often centered on independent women and social expectations, and her writing earned a wide readership in the early twentieth century. Alongside her literary career, she was also associated with the suffrage movement and broader causes of social reform.
Although she is less widely known today than some of her contemporaries, Miriam Michelson is still valued by scholars and readers for her lively prose, feminist edge, and important place in American Jewish and Western literary history.