(Sept. 6, 1860-May 21, 1935)

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself.

Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931, the Illinois native used many methods to enact social change, including the written word. She wrote, in biographies, essays, published speeches and memoirs, on subjects ranging from politics to social ethics to war. Her autobiography Twenty Years at Hull-House is an ambitious documentation of her work founding America’s best known settlement house, and contains the ideas embodied in her struggle to achieve social justice.

(Sept. 13, 1876-March 8, 1941)

If man doesn’t delight in himself and the force in him and feel that he and it are wonders, how is all life to become important to him?

Anderson wrote volumes of poetry, essays, memoirs and short stories, but will always be remembered as the author of the seminal collection Winesburg, Ohio. The small town of Winesburg is the setting for a series of interrelated stories told to protagonist George Willard, who, like a lot of his friends and neighbors and acquaintances, feels a suppressed desire for a better life. Though the book was published as a short story collection, many consider it one of the greatest American novels, and literary heavyweights such as Phillip Roth and Henry Miller have given nods to its influence in their own work. Anderson’s first novel, Windy McPherson’s Son, is the story of an Iowa newsboy who makes his fortune in Chicago, and in it Anderson clearly drew from his own Chicago experiences, as he did in his second novel, Marching Men. Chicago was a magnet that kept pulling Anderson back—he did factory work in the city as a young adult; returned as a successful copywriter several years later; and came back after a nervous breakdown to begin work as a serious writer.