She was the daughter of progressive politician Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette and lawyer and women's suffrage leader Belle Case, wife of playwright George Middleton, a contributing editor to La Follette’s Weekly Magazine, an actress, and, with her mother, a chronicler of her father's life.

[5] After graduating, La Follette acted on the stage for ten years, marrying playwright George Middleton in 1911 while retaining her maiden name.

She performed numerous times in the one-woman play How the Vote was Won, first in 1910, and, in 1912, she appeared in Vaudeville to give a well-received suffragist speech.

"[10] In 1913, La Follette played a role in gaining her father's promise to intercede in the United States Senate on behalf of striking workers in the garment industry in New York City.

La Follette labored over the next 16 years to finish the biography, published in 1953, which the chief of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress called "brilliant" and of which The New York Times reviewer wrote: "What we have here, in sum, is a wonderfully rich and detailed personal account that goes far to restore to us one of the giants of the past generation.