Lael Morgan

Lael Warren Morgan (May 12, 1936 - July 26, 2022) was an American journalist, author and historian who wrote books about Alaska's history and people.

Early life Morgan was born in Rockland, Maine, in 1936 to Hazel and Eugene Warren. She attended Emerson College and transferred to Boston University where she graduated cum laude in 1959. She had a succession of journalism jobs, working as a writer for the Juneau Empire, the News-Miner, Jessen’s Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, National Geographic and the Tundra Times. She worked for Inupiat artist and Tundra Times founder and editor Howard Rock under an Alicia Patterson Fellowship and wrote a book about Rock entitled Art and Eskimo Power. She was assigned to visit every Alaska village which was named in the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement and visited 207 out of 220.

Her book Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush detailing the experiences of sex workers in Alaskan boomtowns of the era, made the Los Angeles Times’ Best Nonfiction list in 1999 and got her named Alaska Historian of the Year.

The Alaska Historical Society named her Historian of the Year in 1998. Morgan was inducted into the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame in 2011 Wanton West: Madams, Money, Murder, and the Wild Women of Montana's Frontier (Chicago Review Press, 2011) Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Goldrush (Epicenter Press, 1998) Eskimo Star: From the Tundra to Tinseltown: The Ray Mala Story (Epicenter Press, 2011)