Harriette Simpson Arnow (July 7, 1908 – March 22, 1986) was an American novelist and historian, who lived in Kentucky and Michigan. Arnow has been called an expert on the people of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, but she herself loved cities and spent crucial periods of her life in Cincinnati and Detroit. Early life and education Arnow was born as Harriette Louisa Simpson in Monticello, Wayne County, Kentucky, and grew up in neighboring Pulaski County. She was one of six siblings in a family that traced its heritage to the Revolutionary War; both parents were teachers and she was raised to be a teacher. She attended Berea College for two years before transferring to the University of Louisville, after which she worked for two years as a teacher in rural Pulaski County, then one of the more remote areas of Appalachia, before moving to Cincinnati. In 1935 she published her first works in Esquire, two short stories, "A Mess of Pork" and "Marigolds and Mules", under the pen name H. L. Simpson, sending a photo of her brother-in-law to disguise her gender. Career as writer In 1936, under the name Harriette Simpson, she published her first novel, Mountain Path, basing it on her experiences as a teacher. Under the instructions of her publisher, Simpson added sensational "Appalachian" stereotypical elements (moonshining, feuds) to her original work, a much more sedate series of sketches. From 1934 to 1939 she lived in Cincinnati and worked for the Federal Writer's Project of the WPA where she met her future husband, Harold B. Arnow, the son of Jewish immigrants, in 1939. They lived briefly in Pulaski County, Harriette again working as a teacher, before settling in a public housing complex in Detroit, Michigan in 1944. Now billing herself as Harriette Arnow, her 1949 novel, Hunter's Horn, was a best seller and received considerable critical acclaim, finishing close to William Faulkner's A Fable in that year's voting for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1950 the Arnows moved to 40 acres of land near Ann Arbor, Michigan. She published her most famous work The Dollmaker in 1954. This Great American Novel about a poor Kentucky family forced by economic necessity to move to Detroit reflected her own life, but also reflects the experiences of many Appalachians who migrated from their homes for the promise of better lives in the industrialized North. Told through the eyes of Gertie Nevels,