Margaret Widdemer was born at Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and began writing in her childhood. After graduating from Drexel Institute Library School in 1909, she became a contributor of poems and short stories to various magazines—her first published poem (“The Factories”) being widely quoted. She married Robert Haven Schauffler, the author, in August, 1919.

Miss Widdemer’s poetic work has two distinct phases. In the one mood, she is the protesting poet, the champion of the down-trodden, the lyricist on fire with angry passion. In the other, she is the writer of well-made, polite and popular sentimental verse. Her finest poems are in Factories with Other Lyrics (1915), although several of her best songs are in The Old Road to Paradise (1918), which divided, with Sandburg’s Cornhuskers, the Columbia Poetry Prize in 1918.

Miss Widdemer is also the author of two books of short stories, four novels and several books for girls.