More than just a careful researcher and a skilled writer, Marchette Chute is an altruistic teacher who is committed to writing for a general audience without compromising scholarship. Her research is painstaking and objective, and she never confuses facts with theories or suppositions.

Born on 16 August 1909 in Hazelwood, Minnesota, Marchette Gaylord Chute was raised on a 450-acre tract of land on Lake Minnetonka, twelve miles from Minneapolis. Her father, William Young Chute, was a successful realtor in Minneapolis; her mother, Edith Mary Pickburn Chute, had been born and raised in England. Influenced by the private tutoring she had received in England, Edith Chute arranged for her daughters to be educated at home. Marchette Chute was the middle child, two years younger than Mary Grace and four years older than Beatrice Joy. When Chute was eleven the family rented a house in Minneapolis so that the girls could attend...