[1][2] Her father was a German immigrant and a Lutheran pastor[1] who worked in Ohio before settling in Lancaster.

[3] Martin was called “Bill” by those who knew her because her parents expected a boy and wanted to name her William Allen after her mother’s uncle, a governor of Ohio.

[4] According to Beverly Seaton, Martin used the Pennsylvania Dutch to critique society and advance her feminist viewpoint because their culture was unfamiliar to most Americans, making it safer for Martin to express controversial opinions about the rights of women and children in her stories.

[1][5] As is typical of Martin's work, Pennsylvania Dutch women are oppressed by brutish, stingy men and a patriarchal society in Tillie.

[1][8][9] Four of Martin's literary works were turned into the films Erstwhile Susan (1919), Tillie (1922), The Snob (1924), and The Parasite (1925).