Tillie Lerner Olsen

An item at American Writers Museum

Born in Nebraska to Russian Jewish immigrants, Tillie Lerner Olsen started writing as a teenager. However, her attentions were diverted by her work as a hotel maid, factory worker, and waitress and her involvement in Depression-era labor movements. She largely set writing aside to raise four daughters in San Francisco.

After returning to writing in her early forties, she championed women, working-class people, and people of color, creating influential and innovative short stories and essays. Her famous short story "I Stand Here Ironing" (1961), narrated by a poor single mother, is a masterpiece of heartbreaking concision.

AMERICAN VOICES

An exhibit at American Writers Museum

American writing is distinctive, diverse, and comes in many forms from across the nation. The 100 authors featured here represent the evolution of American writing. Learn more about each writer on the timeline by turning the panels below their portraits. Explore centuries of writing by pulling, turning, and touching the interactive elements on the counter.

This is not meant to be a list of the greatest or most influential writers. Instead, we present authors and works as part of the American story as it grows and changes. Taken together, this rich literary heritage reflects America in all of its complexity: its energy, hope, conflict, disillusionment, and creativity.

American Writers Museum