Marguerite Harrison

Marguerite Harrison was born in the late 1870s to a prominent Baltimore family. Her early life was somewhat uneventful, but when her husband died in 1915, that all changed. Through her work as a journalist for the Baltimore Sun during World War I, she began to work simultaneously as a journalist and spy, first in post-war Germany and then in post-revolutionary Russia. After her first imprisonment in Russia (which is the central fixture of this book), she returned to Russia (only to be...See more

Marguerite Harrison was born in the late 1870s to a prominent Baltimore family. Her early life was somewhat uneventful, but when her husband died in 1915, that all changed. Through her work as a journalist for the Baltimore Sun during World War I, she began to work simultaneously as a journalist and spy, first in post-war Germany and then in post-revolutionary Russia. After her first imprisonment in Russia (which is the central fixture of this book), she returned to Russia (only to be imprisoned again), traveled across Asia, trekked the Middle East, wrote illuminating accounts of her adventures, co-founded the Society of Women Geographers, helped produce perhaps the world's first film documentary (Grass), and authored an autobiography of her first sixty years. See less