Elizabeth Moorhead

Elizabeth Moorhead Vermorcken (c. 1865 – June 2, 1955) was an American writer from Pittsburgh. She is best known for her novels set in Pittsburgh. She generally wrote under her maiden name, Elizabeth Moorhead.

Early life Moorhead was born in Pittsburgh. Her exact birthdate is not known, but was just after the end of the American Civil War in 1865. She was a well-regarded speaker on literary subjects. She retired from teaching in 1928.

Writing career After her retirement, Moorhead transitioned from short stories to novels. In 1929, she published her first novel, Clouded Hills. Her second novel, Answer Before Dark, was published in 1930. A review in The Washington Post described her writing in Answer Before Dark and in Clouded Hills, as having, "a delicacy of diction which is very charming." Her third novel, The Forbidden Tree, was published in 1933. During her time in Italy, she began to write a history of Pittsburgh based on her family records. She fled back to Pittsburgh in November 1940 after Italy joined World War II, leaving the majority of her possessions behind. In Pittsburgh, she continued work on the book, eventually published in 1942 by the University of Philadelphia Press as Whirling Spindle.

Her final book, These Too Were Here: Louise Homer and Willa Cather, was published in 1950, also by the University of Philadelphia Press. It was a short reminisce about the early life of Pittsburgh novelist Willa Cather. Although it became the basis of many biographies of Cather, later reviewers have described it as "highly romanticized" and have questioned its accuracy.

Moorhead died in Pittsburgh on June 2, 1955.