Margaret Culkin Banning

Margaret Frances Banning ( Culkin; March 18, 1891 – January 4, 1982) was a best-selling American writer of thirty-six novels and an early advocate of women's rights.

Early life Banning was born in Buffalo, Minnesota on March 18, 1891. She was the daughter of William E. Culkin, who served in the Minnesota Senate from 1895 to 1899, and Hannah Alice Young. Her family moved to Duluth, Minnesota when she was five after President William McKinley appointed her father as Register of the Land Office. Her first poem was published in the local paper when she was seven.

She graduated from Vassar College in 1912 with an A.B., where she had been elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

In 1920, This Marrying was bought and published by George H. Doran. Her book was initially advertised alongside works by Stephen Vincent Benet and Elisabeth Sanxay Holding. She was guided in the literary world by Eugene Saxton of Harper & Brothers and Carl Brandt, a literary agent. She continued to keep her husband's name for her writing, even after their divorce in 1930. Banning's last novel, Such Interesting People, was published in 1979. One of her best-known books was Letters to Susan (1936), which was a collection of letters addressed to college women that covered topics such as "drinking, petting, and early marriage". The majority of her archives are held at her alma mater, Vassar College, and Boston University.

Personal life She and Archibald Banning had four children, two of whom survived to adulthood. She was active in philanthropy and served as a volunteer for the Junior League of Duluth, the American Association of University Women, and the League of Women Voters. She was a board member for the Duluth City Symphony and Public Library, It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

In 1944, she married her second husband, LeRoy Salsich, a mining company executive. Margaret Banning Salsich was a lifelong Republican and Roman Catholic. Banning was the first woman admitted to the Duluth Hall of Fame.

Selected works This Marrying, 1920, George H. Doran Co., New York Half Loaves, 1921, Hodder & Stoughton Spellbinders, 1922, George H. Doran Co., New York Country Club People, 1923, George H. Doran Co., New York A Handmaid of the Lord, 1924, Doran, New York The Women of the Family, 1926, Harper & Bros., New York, London Pressure, 1927, Harper & Brothers Money Of Her Own, 1928, Harper & Brothers, New York, London Rich Girl, Poor Girl, 1928, Harper & Brothers Mixed Marriage, 1930, Harper & Brothers Prelude To Love, 1930, Harper & Brothers His Side Of It, 1931, Mills & Boon, London Path of True Love, 1933, Harper & Brothers The Third Son, 1934, Harper & Brothers The First Woman, 1935, Harper & Brothers Letters to Susan, 1936, Harper & Brothers, New York The Iron Will, 1936, Harper & Brothers The Case for Chastity, 1937, Harper & Brothers You Haven't Changed, 1938, Harper & Brothers Too Young To Marry, 1938, Harper & Brothers Enough To Live On, 1941, Harper & Brothers Salud! A South American Journal 1941, with drawings by Rafaello Busoni, Harper & Brothers The Minnesota Arrowhead Country, 1941, Introduction, with the WPA writers, Albert Whitman A Week in New York, 1941, Harper & Brothers, 1947, Blakiston, Philadelphia Women for Defense, 1942, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York Letters from England, Summer 1942, 1943, Harper & Brothers Conduct Yourself Accordingly, 1944, Harper & Brothers (with her sister, Mabel Louise Culkin) The Clever Sister 1950, Dell Give Us Our Years, 1950, Harper & Brothers Fallen Away, 1951, Harper * Brothers A New Design for the Defense Decade, 1951,1952. American Council of Education, Washington. The Dowry, 1955, Harper & Brothers The Convert 1957, Harper & Brothers Echo Answers, 1960, Harper & Brothers, W. H. Allen, London The Quality of Mercy 1963, Harper & Row The Vine and The Olive, 1964, Harper & Row I Took My Love to the Country, 1966, Harper & Row Mesabi, 1969, Harper & Row Lifeboat Number Two, 1971, Harper & Row The Will of Magda Townsend, 1974, Harper & Row, New York, G. K. Hall, Boston, W. H. Allen, London The Splendid Torments, 1976, Harper & Row Such Interesting People, 1979, Harper & Row