Eleanor Gates (26 September 1874 – 7 March 1951) was an American playwright, novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. Her best known work was The Poor Little Rich Girl, which was produced by her husband in 1913 and adapted into films for Mary Pickford in 1917 and for Shirley Temple in 1936. Gates's literary works often drew upon her experiences growing up on the American frontier, and she was noted for her vivid characterizations and exploration of themes such as class disparity and personal discovery.
Early life and education
Gates was born in Shakopee, Minnesota, to William Cummings Gates and Margaret (Archer) Gates. During her infancy, her family relocated to a cattle ranch in the Jim River Valley of South Dakota. These early frontier experiences would later serve as inspiration for her literary works. She later described her early life in her novel The Biography of a Prairie Girl. Her mother died while Gates was in her teens and the family moved to Shasta, California where Gates attended public school.
Gates pursued higher education at Stanford University (1894–1895) and the University of California, Berkeley (1899–1901). While studying, she also worked as a journalist for several San Francisco newspapers, including the Examiner, Call, and Chronicle, as well as the Oakland Enquirer.
Career
Gates had worked initially as a writer for a newspaper in San Francisco, as well as writing novels. On 1906 she spoke out in Cosmopolitan about the problem of unwanted sexual advances made to women and girls when travelling. In the following issue she continued the theme highlighting the problem in how it effected working women in particular. In 1907, one of her novels was illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
