Miss Krout, the Writer

Indiana was home to many feminists in the decades before women won the right to vote; Mary Hannah Krout is among the most famous of these feminists. She was born in Crawfordsville in 1851, the oldest of nine children. Her literary career began at an early age, with the publication of a poem in a newspaper before she was twelve. She earned her first money with her poem, "Little Brown Hands" when she was fifteen; this poem made such an impression that her work was in huge demand and she was invited to speak before an audience in Lafayette when she was sixteen. After teaching in Crawfordsville for eleven years, she started writing for newspapers and magazines, eventually earning a position on the staff of the Chicago Inter-Ocean, where she remained until the paper was sold to the Chicago Tribune. She lectured on women's rights often during her life, although she withdrew from public life around 1906. Mary Hannah Krout died in 1927 in Crawfordsville.