Louise Bryant (December 5, 1885 – January 6, 1936) was an American
journalist and writer. She was best known for her
Marxist and
anarchist beliefs and her essays on radical political and feminist themes. Bryant published articles in several radical left journals during her life, including
Alexander Berkman's
The Blast.
Early life
Bryant was born
Anna Louisa Mohan in
San Francisco, California. Her father, Hugh Mohan was a
coal miner from
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who made his way west with the Railroad crews. Her mother remarried Sheridan Bryant and Louise took her stepfather's name. The family moved to
Nevada where Louise was a student at the
University of Nevada. She later moved to the
University of Oregon in
Eugene. Her senior thesis was about the
Modoc Indian War of Southern Oregon and was completed in 1908. Bryant returned to San Francisco to become a journalist after graduation but was soon nudged, for financial reasons, to teach "school" in Salinas, California in her words "in a remote area, forty miles from a train station". She also wrote that "Mexicans and Spaniards are my students." She moved back to Oregon and became involved with the
Suffrage Movement in Portland, worked for
the Spectator, and married...
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