Caroline Henderson

About the Author

Caroline Henderson was a pioneering American writer and farmer whose poignant observations of life during the Dust Bowl era captured the resilience and struggles of rural America in the 1930s. Born in 1877 on the Oklahoma prairie, she graduated from Oberlin College and married Will Henderson, with whom she homesteaded in the No Man's Land region that became Oklahoma. As dust storms ravaged their land, Henderson chronicled their experiences in a series of letters published in The Atlantic Monthly, offering a firsthand account of the environmental catastrophe and human endurance. Her writing, marked by quiet determination and vivid detail, provides invaluable insight into the Great Depression's impact on the Great Plains. Henderson continued farming and writing until her death in 1966, leaving a legacy as one of the era's most authentic voices.