Margaret Wilson

Margaret Wilhelmina Wilson (January 16, 1882 – October 6, 1973) was an American novelist. She was awarded the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for The Able McLaughlins. Early years and education Born in Traer, Iowa, Wilson grew up on a farm and attended the University of Chicago, earning degrees in 1903 and 1904. Career After completing her education, she became a missionary in the service of the United Presbyterian Church of North America. While assigned to the Punjab region of India, she worked at a girls' school and at a hospital. She returned to the U.S. in 1910 because of illness and resigned from her position as a missionary in 1916. She spent the year 1912-13 at the divinity school of the University of Chicago. Then she taught for five years at West Pullman High School. Throughout these years she cared for her invalid father and published her short stories in a variety of magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly. The themes found throughout her writings include the secondary status of women and the role of religion. When she won a $2,000 prize offered by Harper & Brothers in 1923, her name was unknown because she had signed her short stories in Harper's Magazine "An Elderly Spinster." Her work is of interest in part for its exploration of feminist issues in a domestic context set against a background of an unsympathetic judicial system. She described herself as "the most Middle Western of Middle Westerners" and said that "she wrote for women readers from a woman's point of view. Two of her novels draw on her experiences in India. Written more than a decade after her return, she "managed to transform her more painful experiences into deeply sympathetic and engaging fiction." Daughters of India explores the world of polygamy and Trousers of Taffeta more specifically focuses on a woman's need to produce a male heir.