author
Mrs. John H. Kinzie
1806–1870
A pioneer writer of early Chicago, she turned firsthand frontier experiences into some of the best-known accounts of the Midwest in the 1830s. Her work blends memoir, local history, and vivid storytelling about a fast-changing region.
2 Audiobooks
Wau-Bun: The Early Day in the Northwest
by Mrs. John H. Kinzie
Wau-Bun: The "Early Day" of the North-West
by Mrs. John H. Kinzie
About the author
Born Juliette Augusta Magill in Middletown, Connecticut, in 1806, she is better known to many readers as Mrs. John H. Kinzie. She married John H. Kinzie in 1830 and became closely connected with early Chicago and the wider Midwest frontier, experiences that would shape her writing for the rest of her life.
She is remembered above all for Wau-Bun: The "Early Day" in the Northwest (1856), a lively account of frontier life, Native communities, military posts, and settlement in the region around Chicago. Reference sources also describe her as a historian, writer, and pioneer of the American Midwest, reflecting the way her books helped preserve stories from the area’s early years.
Kinzie died in 1870 at Amagansett, New York. Today, she remains an important voice for readers interested in early Chicago, western expansion, and the ways personal memory helped shape nineteenth-century American history.