Angela Morgan

About Angela Morgan

Angela Morgan was born in 1875 in Washington, D.C. Her given name at birth was Nina Lillian, which she later changed to Angela.

When her father left to search for gold, her sisters and brother came together to create a quartet that performed to earn money to sustain the family. They performed until 1898 when one of the sisters passed away and others married. Morgan married Peter Sweningson in 1900, but the marriage only lasted until 1906.

Now that Morgan needed to support herself, she turned to a love of writing. Her career as a writer started as a journalist for the Chicago and New York newspapers before World War I. Much of her time was spent visiting courts, jails, and other places where suffering was present in order to cover her news stories. It was this experience that helped her write about social issues in future poems.

In 1915, Angela Morgan was given the opportunity to leave the newspaper business in order to focus on her own creative writing aspirations. She had been assigned to interview G. Campbell Morgan, a prominent preacher. He read her poem, "God's Man," at his pulpit in New York, which led to it being published in the Collier's Weekly.

Her most productive years were from 1914-1940. Morgan's pieces were published in major magazines. She also wrote fourteen books of poems, one novel, and a book of short stories. Despite her success as a writer, she was not ranked highly as a poet by fellow poets. Morgan also faced financial difficulties, which caused her to constantly move around and stay with friends who extended an invitation.

To recognize her accomplishments in the literary world, Angela Morgan was awarded an honorary degree from The Golden State University, Los Angeles in 1942.

She passed away on January 24, 1957 in New York.