Wilder Goodwin

Born in Ballston Spa, New York, in 1856, Maud Wilder Goodwin built a career as an American writer whose work ranged across historical fiction, biography, and popular history. She died in New York City in 1935.

She is especially remembered for writing accessible books that brought American history to a wide audience. Her work included historical subjects as well as biographies, and she is associated with titles such as Dutch and English on the Hudson.

Goodwin wrote in a way that aimed to inform without feeling dry, which helps explain why her books still attract readers interested in lively history writing from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.