Zona Belle Gale (1874 - 1938)

Ancestors

Biography

Zona Gale was an American author and playwright. She became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1921.

"In addition to her fiction writing, Gale was an active supporter of the La Follettes (both Robert M. La Follettes, and Philip La Follette) and progressive causes. She was an active member of the National Women'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."

In 1928 at the age of fifty-four she married William L. Breese, also of Portage. she became stepmother to his adopted daughter, Juliette Blackman Breese.

Gale died of pneumonia in a Chicago hospital in 1938.

The house she built for her parents in Portage, now known as the Zona Gale House, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Zona Gale
• "Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947," database, (FamilySearch : 8 March 2018), Zona Gale Breese, 27 Dec 1938; Public Board of Health, Archives, Springfield; FHL microfilm 1,953,409.

See Also

• Works by Zona Gale at Project Gutenberg
• Census records attached to FamilySearch Person: KDQ7-93K
• Find A Grave: Memorial #30291705