Olive Tilford Dargan

Who was Olive Tilford Dargan?

Olive Tilford Dargan was born on a farm in Kentucky. She was educated at the University of Nashville and Radcliffe College. She taught in Arkansas, Missouri, Texas and Canada before moving to the southern United States for health reasons. In 1898 she married Pegram Dargan of South Carolina. Tilford published a number of novels, dramas, and books of poetry. In 1916 she received the Southern Society of New York prize for the best book by a Southern writer, and in 1925 she was awarded the Belmont-Ward Fugitive Prize. Two novels published under the pseudonym Fielding Burke describe labor conditions in North Carolina mill towns. Dargan received an honorary degree in Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1925.