Mary Anna Hallock Foote

Mary Anna Hallock Foote (born Nov. 19, 1847, Milton, N.Y., U.S.—died June 25, 1938, Hingham, Mass.) was an American novelist and illustrator whose vivid literary and artistic productions drew on life in the mining communities of the American West.

Mary Hallock grew up in a literary home and early displayed artistic talent. She attended Poughkeepsie (New York) Female Collegiate Seminary and in 1864–67 the women’s art school of the Cooper Institute in New York City. For several years thereafter she earned a living as an illustrator for books and magazines, including Scribner’s Monthly, Harper’s Weekly, and the Century. In 1876 she married Arthur D. Foote, a civil and mining engineer with whom she lived thereafter in various mining districts in the West. Her colourful surroundings inspired not only drawings but also written description and eventually fiction. From her years in Leadville, Colorado, came The Led-Horse Claim (1883), first serialized in the Century; John Bodewin’s Testimony (1886); and The Last Assembly Ball (1889). From Boise, Idaho, came The Chosen Valley (1892), Coeur d’Alene (1894), and In Exile and Other Stories (1894).

Foote’s subsequent books, including The Little Fig Tree Stories (1899), The Desert and the Sown (1902), The Royal Americans (1910), and Edith Bonham (1917), presented pictures of Western life among miners, Mexicans, and others. Self-illustrated, they sometimes rivaled the works of Bret Harte. At the insistence of her various editors, however, she frequently submitted with little resistance to the dictates of Victorian gentility and formulaic fiction. Her work soon passed out of circulation.

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