Ruth Moore

Now primarily thought of as a regional writer, Moore was a significant literary figure on the national stage during her career.

Her second novel Spoonhandle spent fourteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in the company of George Orwell, W. Somerset Maugham and Robert Penn Warren.

[3] In 1926, Moore moved to New York City where she worked as personal secretary to Mary White Ovington, one of the founders of the NAACP.

In 1929 Moore accepted a position as Assistant Campaign Manager with the NAACP working directly for the organization's head James Weldon Johnson.

In the summer of 1930, she traveled to the south as an NAACP investigator, where she successfully unearthed evidence that led to the freeing of two African American youths falsely accused of murder.

[4] Moore's first published work, a poem "Voyage", appeared in a 1929 issue of the Saturday Review of Literature.

[3] From 1932 to 1935, Moore worked as assistant to Dr. John Haynes Holmes, a prominent minister and associate of Ovington's.

She and Mayo purchased land on the west side of Mount Desert Island and set about building their house.

By 1979, Moore had published 13 novels including The Walk Down Main Street (1960), The Sea Flower (1965), and The Gold and Silver Hooks (1969).