1996 Iowa Women's Hall of Fame Honoree: Meridel Le Sueur (1900-1996)
"Her artistic talents and dedication to cultural documentation allowed her to create truly unique statements about life in this state."
— Mary Bennett, 1996
Meridel Le Sueur, Wisconsin, was born in Murray, Iowa in 1900. She has spent her life recording Women's lives and documenting the United States' cultural heritage through her fiction, poetry, history, journalism, autobiography, and biography. Her experiences and writings reflect the poor women in this century and the need for women to be linked to other generations of women. Le Sueur has written extensively about her grandmother, an Iowa pioneer and militant temperance worker, and her mother, an active feminist and a socialist. Rural and ethnic life in the Midwest, the land, and corn are other common themes. During the McCarthy era in the 1950s, she was blacklisted, resulting in being unable to publish her works for nearly 30 years. Since 1970, her works have found a new audience and new popularity. Le Sueur was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.
UPDATE: Le Sueur died on November 14, 1996 in Hudson, Wisconsin.