Margaret Frances Culkin Banning (March 18, 1891 – January 4, 1982) was a best-selling American writer of thirty-six novels and an early advocate of women's rights. Early life Banning was born in Buffalo, Minnesota on March 18, 1891. She was the daughter of William E. Culkin, who served in the Minnesota Senate from 1895 to 1899, and Hannah Alice Young. Her family moved to Duluth, Minnesota when she was five after President William McKinley appointed her father as Register of the Land Office. Her first poem was published in the local paper when she was seven. She attended local public schools before spending a year at Sacred Heart Academy in Rochester, New York. She graduated from Vassar College in 1912 with an A.B., where she had been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She was the editor of the college mazine in her senior year. Banning was inspired by the Irish Revival movement and particularly enjoyed the works of Lady Gregory while studying at the college. She attended Russell Sage College on a fellowship for social work from 1912 to 1913, and then received a certificate from the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy in 1914. Career Banning moved back to Duluth and worked as a social center director and playground supervisor for the city for a year. She married Archibald T. Banning, Jr., a Duluth lawyer, in 1914 and the couple moved overseas. During World War I, her husband was working in Europe while Banning stayed in London, where she worked part time for the Red Cross and began work on her first novel. After a year, she moved back to the United States and spent a summer in New York with her children, tutoring with Viola Roseboro, a former editor of McClure's Magazine. Banning published her first novel, This Marrying, in 1920 after it was bought by George H. Doran. Her book was initially advertised alongside works by Stephen Vincent Benet and Elisabeth Sanxay Holding. She was guided in the literary world by Eugene Saxton of Harper & Brothers and Carl Brandt, a literary agent. She wrote thirty-nine books as well as over 400 short stories and personal essays, many of which were published in magazines such as Good Housekeeping, McCall’s, Ladies’ Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Bazaar, and Reader’s Digest. Her work covered issues of social and moral importance, including race relations, birth control,