Biographies

Rebecca Harding Davis:

A Life Among Writers

Winner of a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title award for 2018.

Dr. Mary Walker: 

An American Radical

Dr. Mary Walker featured on Lawrence O’Donnell’s “The Last Word,” MSNBC, September 2015, 

https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/herstory-dr-mary-walker-women-who-serve-526225987658

"Harris's biography unearths the drama and danger of living in a border city under Union control during the [Civil War] years." 

                                  Los Angeles Review of Books

Rebecca Harding Davis was a renowned 19th-century author and journalist whose career spanned from the pre-Civil War years to the early 20th century. Her personal and professional relationships with everyone from Nathaniel Hawthorne to President Grover Cleveland placed her at the center of a world in transition--a transition she helped shape.

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"Harris’s lucidly written, meticulously researched study captures the combination of moral purpose, extraordinary self-confidence, and sheer gumption that propelled Walker into a life of public service and controversy."

                   Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers

Dr. Mary Walker was the only woman contracted as a surgeon by the U.S. Army during the Civil War, and she is the only woman in U.S. history to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for her work as a physician--and as a spy--during the war. A radical supporter of women's rights, she personified independence and determination.       

                                                 Buy this book

See my interview about “Mary Edwards Walker,” NBC News blog, May 26, 2014,

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/mary-edwards-walker-only-woman-receive-medal-honor-n111596

In Progress

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  I'm currently working on a biography of Elizabeth G. Jordan (1865-1947)

                —investigative reporter in the 1890s

                    —renowned mystery writer, short story writer, novelist, playwright 

                       —editor of Harper's Bazar

                             —editorial director, Goldwyn Pictures

                                —columnist (Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times)

                                     —suffragist and women's rights activist

                                       —drama critic

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