LOCAL COLOR
 19th-century Regional Writing in the United States


MARY HALLOCK FOOTE (1847-1938)

   To truthful pictures of the Snake, Bear, and Grand River country and of numerous mining communities, Mary Hallock Foote (1847-I938) has added stories of men and women concerned with the fundamental problems of conduct or adjustment to new conditions in the unweeded life of the frontier. Famous as an illustrator, she turned to writing, she says, when "I found the West and its absorbing material too much for my pencil." Born in Milton, New York, she studied art in New York City. After her marriage in 1876 to a mining engineer, she lived in California, Colorado, and Idaho where she found the irrigation-ditches, the mines, engineering camps and army posts, the storms and chinooks that afforded material for her writings and drawings. Her books include The Led-Horse Claim (1883), In Exile and Other Stories (I894), Coeur d'Alene (1894).
[rptd. from Harry R. Warfel and G. Harrison Orians, American Local Color Stories (NY: American Book, 1941) 583.

   Her story, "Maverick," will sweep you along through a menacing but mesmerizing landscape. Foote is among a handful of writers to deal sympathetically with the plight of women on the 'frontier.'

< The West
Who's Who | 19th-century Context | Literary Quarrels
19th-century Local Color Homepage



"Nineteenth-century Regional Writing in the United States" is the work of Dottie Webb. For suggestions, complaints, cattle-rustling schemes or gossiping over the fence in neighborly fashion, send your e-correspondence to drdotwebb@traverse.com

This document was last modified 11/26/97.

This site graciously hosted in Traverse City, MI
by the great folks at Traverse Communication Co.