20th-century American non-fiction writers

Jackie Ormes (August 1, 1911 – December 26, 1985) was an American cartoonist. She is known as the first African-American woman cartoonist and creator of the Torchy Brown comic strip and the Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger panel.

Mary Rosamond Haas (January 23, 1910 – May 17, 1996) was an American linguist who specialized in North American Indian languages, Thai, and historical linguistics. She served as president of the Linguistic Society of America. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Heloise Bowles Cruse (May 4, 1919 – December 28, 1977) was the original author of the popular syndicated newspaper column "Hints from Heloise."Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Bowles married Marshal (Mike) Holman Cruse, a United States Air Force captain (later colonel) in 1946. Their daughter Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse, born in 1951, is the current "Heloise".Bowles Cruse had been exchanging hints with neighboring stay-at-home-wives. While at a party she mentioned her wish to start a newspaper column where housewives could share hints. A colonel with two degrees in journalism laughed and bet her $10 she couldn’t get a newspaper job, for she was "nothing but a housewife." The next day she went to the offices of the Honolulu Advertiser and convinced the editor to try her column on a 30-day, no-pay basis.The original column was first published as "Readers' Exchange" in 1959. In 1961, King Features syndicated it as "Hints from Heloise"; nearly 600 newspapers carried the column, and, at the time of her death, it was one of three most popular (in terms of syndication) in the United States.Her book Heloise's Housekeeping Hints, published by Prentice-Hall, Inc., was, at half a million copies total, one of the top 10 selling hardcover books in 1963. The book later became the fastest selling paperback in the history of its publisher Pocket Books.

Ruth McCue Bell Graham (June 10, 1920 – June 14, 2007) was a Chinese-born American Christian author, most well known as the wife of evangelist Billy Graham. She was born in Qingjiang, Jiangsu, Republic of China, the second of five children. Her parents, Virginia Leftwich Bell and L. Nelson Bell, were medical missionaries at the Presbyterian Hospital 300 miles (480 km) north of Shanghai. At age 13 she was enrolled in Pyeng Yang Foreign School in Pyongyang, Korea, where she studied for three years. She completed her high school education at Montreat, North Carolina, while her parents were there on furlough. She graduated from Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.
The Grahams met at Wheaton College and were married in the summer of 1943, shortly after their graduation. Ruth Graham became a minister's wife for a brief period in Western Springs, Illinois. She lived out the rest of her life in Montreat, North Carolina. The Grahams have five children: Virginia (Gigi), Anne, Ruth, Franklin, and Nelson Edman (Ned), 19 grandchildren, and numerous great-grandchildren.
Graham wrote a number of books, including some co-authored with her daughter Gigi Graham.

Ernesto Galarza (August 15, 1905 – June 22, 1984) was a Mexican-American labor organizer, activist, professor, poet, writer, storyteller, and a key figure in the history of immigrant farmworker organization in California. He had a dream of giving better living conditions to working-class Latinos.

Ann Cottrell Free (June 4, 1916 – October 30, 2004) was an American journalist who wrote extensively on animal protection issues.

William Nathan Oatis (January 4, 1914 – September 16, 1997) was an American journalist who gained international attention when he was charged with espionage by the communist Czechoslovakia in 1951. He was subsequently jailed until 1953.

Elizabeth (Bettie) Stickler Fruits Cadou was born on New Years Day in 1936 in Bainbridge, Indiana. Although she is best known for being the first female reporter to be given a silver credential badge that permits access to the pit and garage areas of the world-famous racetrack, the Indianapolis 500, on 28 May 1971, Cadou is equally known for her investigative reporting around the state of Indiana, covering the Indiana General Assembly, the Indianapolis Colts, and national profiles of race car drivers. She was elected into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame in 2006 and has a journalism scholarship in her name in the Department of Journalism at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis.

Jack Frasure Hyles (September 25, 1926 – February 6, 2001) was a leading figure in the Independent Baptist movement, having pastored the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Hammond, Indiana, from August 1959 until his death. He was well known for being an innovator of the church bus ministry that brought thousands of people each week from surrounding towns to Hammond for services. Hyles built First Baptist up from fewer than a thousand members to a membership of 100,000. In 1993 and again in 1994, it was reported that 20,000 people attended First Baptist every Sunday, making it the most attended Baptist church in the United States. In 2001, at the time of Hyles's death, 20,000 people were attending church services and Sunday school each week.

Frank B. Ebersole (1919–2009) was an American philosopher who developed a unique form of ordinary language philosophy.