Helen Reimensnyder Martin (1868–1939) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author. She was born in Lancaster

Lancaster, Pennsylvania

Lancaster is a city in the south-central part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the county seat of Lancaster County and one of the older inland cities in the United States, . With a population of 59,322, it ranks eighth in population among Pennsylvania's cities...

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, studied at Swarthmore

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....

 and at Radcliffe

Radcliffe College

Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...

 colleges; and married Frederic C. Martin in 1889. She became known for her stories of "the Pennsylvania Dutch

Pennsylvania Dutch

Pennsylvania Dutch refers to immigrants and their descendants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland who settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries...

," the shorter ones contributed to Leslie's

Frank Leslie's Weekly

Frank Leslie's Weekly, later often known in short as Leslie's Weekly, was an American illustrated literary and news magazine founded in 1852 and continuing publication well into the 20th century. As implied by its name, it was published weekly, on Tuesdays. Its first editor was John Y. Foster...

, the Century

The Century Magazine

The Century Magazine was first published in the United States in 1881 by The Century Company of New York City as a successor to Scribner's Monthly Magazine...

, the Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan (magazine)

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

, the Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...

, and other magazines. Her early work was so harshly photographic and sensational that it was quite naturally resented by the people whom she portrayed. Her well known novel Tillie: a Mennonite Maid (1904) especially provoked many cries of misrepresentation. The story, about a young girl of Pennsylvania Dutch

Pennsylvania Dutch

Pennsylvania Dutch refers to immigrants and their descendants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland who settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries...

, but not Mennonite, background, though she briefly joins a Reformed Mennonite

Reformed Mennonite

The Reformed Mennonite Church is an Anabaptist religious denomination that officially separated from the main North American Mennonite body in 1812.-History:...

 church in her teens, chronicles the early life of a girl who eventually becomes a school teacher, attends college, and marries, escaping the domination of her harsh father. Martin wrote:

• Warren Hyde (1897)
• The Elusive Hildegarde (1900)
• Tillie, a Mennonite
  Mennonite
  The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
  
   Maid (1904)
• Sabina, A Story of the Amish
  Amish
  The Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
  
  (1905)
• His Courtship (1907)
• The Betrothal of Elypholate (1907)
• The Revolt of Ann Royle (1908)
• The Crossways (1910; new edition, 1914)
• When Half-Gods Go (1911)
• The Fighting Doctor (1912)
• The Parasite (1913)
• Barnabetta (1914)
• Martha of the Mennonite Country (1915)
• Those Fitzenbergers (1917)
• Gertie Swartz: Fanatic
  Fanaticism
  Fanaticism is a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal, particularly for an extreme religious or political cause or in some cases sports, or with an obsessive enthusiasm for a pastime or hobby...
  
   or Christian
  Christianity
  Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
  
  (1918)
• Maggie of Virginsburg (1918)
• The Schoolmaster of Hessville (1920)
• The Marriage of Susan (1921)
• Tender Talons (1930)

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