The Able McLaughlins

Margaret Wilhelmina Wilson (1882–1973) was an American novelist born in Traer, Iowa, who served as a missionary in India before publishing her debut novel The Able McLaughlins (1923), which won the 1924 Pulitzer Prize and a $2,000 Harper Prize, and depicted Scottish Presbyterian pioneer life in the Midwest. She wrote eight adult novels, including sequels The Law and the McLaughlins (1936) and The Painted Room (1926), as well as works on Indian women's lives like Daughters of India (1928) and prison reform influenced by her husband, a British prison official. Her themes often explored religion's impact, women's societal roles, and justice, earning recognition as an early feminist writer despite mixed critical reception on plotting.