Lou Rogers (November 26, 1879 – March 11, 1952) was a cartoonist, illustrator, writer, storyteller, public speaker, radio host, and political activist.

Her childhood was spent on a small farm,[1] with vacations at the family's isolated camp at nearby Shin Pond, where pristine woodlands abutted the quiet lake.

[1] Afterwards she signed on to a business venture with a classmate, where they traveled out West offering physical culture seminars to communities.

[7] A year later Cartoons Magazine profiled Rogers as a successful cartoonist in "A Woman Destined to Do Big Things.

[4] New York City alone claimed, among others, resident cartoonist-illustrator Laura Foster and Edwina Dumm, as well as Cornelia Barns and Alice Beach Winter, who contributed to the radical avant-garde magazine, The Masses:[11] In the atmosphere of Greenwich Village, Rogers was attracted to the woman suffrage movement[1] and to socialism,[12] perceiving both movements as worthy causes to be promoted through her cartoons.

[13] She was invited to join Heterodoxy, a private club for radical, freethinking professional women, that met twice a month, for lunch and serious discussions.

[15] She formed a close friendship with Heterodoxy member Elizabeth C. Watson,[15] a Maryland woman active in prison and labor reform.

[18] Rogers began appearing in Times Square, street corners, fairs, and other locations dressed in her artist's smock, as she drew oversized cartoons in the tradition of chalk talks.

[24] When American women finally achieved the vote, Rogers continued her activism by contributing cartoons to the New Yorker Volkzeitung and the Birth Control Review.

She contracted with the Ladies Home Journal to produce a series of children's stories in rhyme about imaginary little people called "Gimmicks.

[33] The magazine was presenting a series called "These Modern Women," and Rogers had been selected by managing editor Freda Kirchwey as a successful woman typifying new feminist possibilities.

[39] In 1925 Rogers purchased an old farm in New Milford, CT.[40] It was nestled in a scenic hillside and provided a quiet getaway, studio space and an opportunity for renovation.