Born: 30 October 1857, United States
Died: 14 June 1948
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Gertrude Franklin Horn
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Gertrude Franklin Atherton, an American novelist, the grand-niece of Benjamin Franklin, born at San Francisco, Cal., educated in California and in Lexington, Ky. She became the wife of G.H.B. Atherton, now deceased.
The background to a series of her novels is California, and the life of her State today she has given memorable studies. The California series include: The Splendid Idle Forties, Doomswoman, A Daughter of the Vine, Ancestors, etc. In the East, she is almost equally at home, having written Patience Sparhawk, a satirical study of life in New York – Aristocrats, which has the Adirondacks for its setting – and Senator North, with its intimate pictures of social and political life in Washington. One of her notable stories is The Conqueror, in which the subject is of an epic breadth and where the personal story of Alexander Hamilton stands out in relief against the national life of his time.
During the European war of 1914 – 1918 she spent much of her time in Paris, and wrote many interesting and illuminating letters.
IW note: Atherton was also a prominent white supremacist.