Zona Gale

Deborah Williams (New York University)
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Zona Gale, the first woman to win a Pulitzer prize for drama, was born in 1874, the only child of middle-class parents. The family lived in the small Wisconsin town of Portage, which would become the setting for most of Gale's novels, stories, and plays. In many ways, Gale's early career fits the image of the turn-of-the-century New Woman: after finishing college, she worked as a journalist, first in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and then in New York, at the

New York World

. She gave up journalism, however, in order to concentrate full-time on fiction writing. Gale's first short stories, set in the fictional town of Friendship Village, were tremendously popular, and led to a number of Friendship Village collections. The first,

Friendship Village

, was published in 1908 and the last,

Peace in

371 words

Citation: Williams, Deborah. "Zona Gale". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1668, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1668 Zona Gale 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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