Margaret Culkin Banning

Margaret Culkin Banning (March 18, 1891-January 4, 1982) was the daughter of Minnesota State Senator William E. Culkin. She was born in Buffalo, New York, but President McKinley appointed her father to a position in Duluth, so the family moved there. The Culkin children were all well-educated, and Margaret earned her bachelor’s degree from Vassar College in New York. She was a Vassar College trustee, a Duluth Public Library trustee, the first woman admitted to the Duluth Hall of Fame, and a member of the British Information Service in World War II.

Banning published her first book in 1920 and continued writing and publishing until the year of her death. She authored thirty-six novels and more than four hundred essays and short stories, usually concerned with the problems of religion, youth, women, and social change. Her last novel, Such Interesting People, was published in 1979. Other selected novels include Spellbinders and The First Woman.

More information on Margaret Culkin Banning from the Minnesota Historical Society.