Margaret Frances Banning (née Culkin; March 18, 1891 – January 4, 1982) was a best-selling American writer of thirty-six novels and an early advocate of women's rights.

[1][2] Her family moved to Duluth, Minnesota when she was five after President William McKinley appointed her father as Register of the Land Office.

[4] She attended Russell Sage College on a fellowship for social work from 1912 to 1913 and then received a certificate from the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy in 1914.

[2][3] Banning moved back to Duluth and worked as a city's social center director and playground supervisor for a year.

[4] She wrote thirty-nine books as well as over 400 short stories and personal essays, many of which were published in magazines such as Good Housekeeping, McCall's, Ladies' Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Bazaar, and Reader's Digest.

Her work covered issues of social and moral importance, including race relations, birth control, and mixed religion marriages.

[8] She traveled to England after World War II to study women's social conditions and then worked in refugee camps in Austria and Germany.

[7] She purchased the Friendly Hills estate near Tryon, North Carolina in 1936 and enjoyed the property seasonally for the remainder of her life.