Mildred Aldrich (1853–1928) was an American journalist, editor, writer and translator. She spent her early career as a journalist and editor in Boston before moving to Paris, where she continued working as a foreign correspondent and translator. In 1914, shortly before the start of World War I, she retired to a house in the French countryside overlooking the Marne River valley. She published a novel and four accounts of her life based on collections of her letters written during the war years. In 1922, she was awarded the French Legion of Honour in recognition of her assistance to soldiers and refugees, and the influence her books apparently had in persuading the United States government to declare war on Germany.
Biography
Mildred Aldrich was born on November 16, 1853, in Providence, Rhode Island, to Edwin and Lucy Ayers (Baker) Aldrich. She grew up in Boston and graduated from Everett High School in 1872. After teaching elementary school for a short time, she began her career in journalism.
Aldrich worked for 12 years as secretary to the manager of the Boston Home Journal and contributed articles using the pseudonym H. Quinn. In 1892, she founded and edited The Mahogany Tree, a weekly journal of ideas containing fiction, poetry, and drama and book reviews. She joined The Boston Journal in 1894 and moved the following year to the Boston Herald, where she worked as a drama critic.
Aldrich moved to France in 1898, joining a circle of American expatriate writers that included Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Here she found a mixed portfolio of work as a foreign correspondent, a translator and an agent for American theatre producers, as well as a writer of articles for American magazines.
