Ruth Pickering Pinchot (bornRuth Pickering; June 20, 1893 – December 24, 1984) was an American writer, critic, and activist.^[1]

Ruth Pickering was born in 1893 inElmira, New York.^[2] She was born to a family ofQuakers who ran a small company, Peerless Dyes. Ruth graduated fromVassar College in 1914. Upon graduation, she moved toGreenwich Village, New York, where she lived in a communal house withCrystal Eastman, and several other writers, artists, and thinkers.^[3]

Ruth contributed to primarily left leaning publications such asThe Masses,The Nation andThe New Republic.^[1] As a writer forThe Nation, Ruth authored an essay reflecting on the development of her own views of feminism as part of a series called "These Modern Women," which published over 1926 and 1927. She was an advocate ofbirth control and asuffragette. Early in her career, Ruth frequently wrote about the labor movement.^[4] Along with her husband Amos she became involved with the political group the Committee of 48.^[5] By the late 1920s, Ruth became an art and dance critic, leaving behind many of the topics covered earlier in her career.^[4]

Although Ruth was known as a left-leaning writer early in her career, her politics began to shift to the right in 1930s. Her objections toFranklin Delano Roosevelt'sNew Deal programs solidified her rightward shift. Pinchot and her husband began to embrace the isolationist groupAmerica First.^[6]

In August 1919, Ruth marriedAmos Pinchot.^[3] Amos had been a frequent visitor of the communal house which Ruth shared with other writers.^[2] With Amos Pinchot she had two daughters,Antoinette Pinchot Bradlee (1924–2011) andMary Pinchot Meyer.^[1][6]

Amos, Ruth, and Gifford andCornelia Pinchot donated the former Pinchot family home toMilford, Pennsylvania, on July 1, 1924. The donated home was turned into a local branch of thePike County Library.^[7]

• 20th-century American women writers
• 20th-century American women journalists
• Writers from Elmira, New York
• Journalists from New York (state)
• Vassar College alumni
• 1893 births
• 1984 deaths
• Activists from New York (state)
• 20th-century American non-fiction writers
• 20th-century American journalists
• Pinchot family

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