Zona Gale

Zona Gale, also known by her married name, Zona Gale Breese, was an American novelist, short story writer, and playwright. She became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921. The close relationship she had with her parents set the tone for her writing and her personal life. Her books based upon her home town were found to be charming and had an intimate sense of realism, in which she captures the underlying feelings and motivations of her characters. All of her works were written under her maiden name, Zona Gale.  

She became a single parent when she adopted a girl. Her parents died in 1923 and 1929. After her parents died, she became interested in mysticism, which changed her writing style, to the chagrin of the critics who had enjoyed her previous work. She was unmarried until she was in her fifties, when she married a childhood friend who was a widower. She supported political and social causes, like women's rights, pacifism, and education.  

Gale was born on August 26, 1874 in Portage, Wisconsin to Charles Franklin and Eliza Beers Gale. She was very close to her parents, who were the inspiration for the "charming elderly couple" in her book The Loves of Pelleas and Etare. She began writing and illustrating stories at the age of 7. Her first story was printed in pencil, because she did not know how to write yet, and the manilla pages were bound into a book that was held together by a ribbon.  

Gale submitted a short story, "Bob", to the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin when she was sixteen, and was paid $3 for the story. She attended Wayland Academy in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin before she entered the University of Wisconsin, where she received a Bachelor of Literature or Library Science degree in 1895. She received a master's degree in Library Science in 1899 and another master's degree in 1901. While a student, her poems were published in university publications. She received an honorary degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1929.  

After college, Gale wrote for Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin. She got the job by showing up at the city editor's desk each day. After two weeks, the city editor asked her to write a story about a flower show. After a total of six weeks, she was given a job on the paper. In 1896, she worked for the Milwaukee Journal. She went to New York City in 1901 and applied to get on every paper in the city. To get a job, she prepared a list of story ideas relevant for that day for the New York World and persisted until she got two assignments, and then a job.  

All of this was so largely sheer adventure and pioneering that none of it now seems to me to have been either will or purpose, but sheer delight.  

— Zona Gale  

Hired as a secretary to Edmund Clarence Stedman, she met people from his literary circle, including Ridgely Torrence, with whom she would have a relationship, and Richard Le Gallienne. She returned to her hometown in 1903 and saw it in a new light that changed her direction as a writer. She found that her "old world was full of new possibilities." She returned to Portage permanently in 1904, where she wrote her stories full-time.  

She published Romance Island, her first novel, in 1906, and began the popular "Friendship Village" series of stories which were thought to be based upon Portage, although Gale stated that Friendship Village was not based upon any one town, but typical of a small town.  

Preface to Love, published in 1926 was based on a new-found mysticism that grew after the death of her mother in 1923 and her father in 1929. The main character mistakes his inner wisdom and mysticism for madness. She published essays based upon mysticism. In these works, people's problems could be solved through a kind of transcendentalist enlightenment. Critics, who did not enjoy her book and essays, viewed her work unfavorably from that point forward, even when she tried to return to realism.  

She wrote a book about a friend, Frank Augustus Miller, the founder of the Mission Inn Hotel, after his death in 1935. The biography, titled Frank Miller of Mission Inn, was published in 1938. Throughout her career, she wrote under her maiden name, Zona Gale.  

She was a suffragist, an activist, and a liberal Democrat, who supported the La Follettes, including Robert Sr. and his two sons Robert Jr. and Philip. She spoke for them at events and on the radio when they were campaigning for office.  

She was an active member of the National Woman's Party, and she lobbied extensively for the 1921 Wisconsin Equal Rights Law. In the same year, she attended the founding meeting (in New York) of the Lucy Stone League and became a member of its executive committee. Her activism on behalf of women was her way to help solve "a problem she returned to repeatedly in her novels: women's frustration at their lack of opportunities."  

She became a pacifist during World War I. She was a director of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She also criticized the inclusion of military training in college curriculums. She was on the executive committee of the American Union Against Militarism and a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Women's Peace Society.  

Zona Gale did not belong to a war torn world. Her influence for peace and good will lives on. That in no way will affect our love for her or her love for humanity.  

— Ada James, social work leader, December 28, 1938  

She was against racial prejudice and promoted improved means of communication among races. She served on the Wisconsin Free Library Commission. In 1922, she established Zona Gale scholarships to pay towards talented young adult's education.  

  
She later became a regent of the university and became embroiled in the ouster of the president, Dr. Glenn Frank. Governor Philip La Follette convinced other regents, some of who he had appointed, to call for the removal of Frank. Gale stood by Frank and criticized the governor.  

  
In 1902, she met Ridgely Torrence in New York, with whom she developed a "deeply felt spiritual love", but when considering whether to stay in New York or return to Portage, she returned to her family. Construction began on a house for her and her parents in 1906. Located along the shore of the Wisconsin River in Portage, she lived in the house most of her adult life.  

  
Gale came to Chicago in mid-December 1938 for treatment of an ailment and contracted pneumonia about December 20. She died of pneumonia in Passavant Hospital in Chicago on December 27.