Pen Name:
Leslie Perrin Wilson
Genres:
Articles
Biography
Essays
Other Nonfiction
Website:
Bio
Leslie Perrin Wilson, a historian and writer, lives in Taos, New Mexico. She spent her working life in special collections and archives, retiring in 2019 as Curator of the Concord (Massachusetts) Free Public Library. In retirement, she has been drawn to the life stories of ordinary women. Her recent books include Much to Learn, Much to Give: Ellen Lawrence, Teacher of Pueblo Textile Arts (2025); Mid-Century Chic: The Fashion Illustrations of Lucia Perrin (2022); and “This Is the Life”: The Diary of Jennie McLeod (2020). A transplant to New Mexico, Wilson enjoys exploring the people, landscape, and history of her new home.
Books
Title: Much to Learn, Much to Give: Ellen Lawrence, Teacher of Pueblo Textile Arts
Published: Sunstone Press, 2025
Genre: Biography
Born in 1871, married in 1896, Ellen Lawrence was a skilled needleworker and craftswoman. She ultimately turned her facility with handicrafts into a means of financial support. She entered the United States Indian Service in 1915 as a teacher of lacemaking to Native Americans in southern California and learned Pueblo embroidery and weaving in New Mexico while living and working among the Native people at Jemez. During the early to mid-1930s (a period of heightened interest in Native designs and techniques), she taught traditional Indian crafts at the Albuquerque Indian School. Despite her position in the flawed federal Indian school system, hers is a story of evolution toward cultural appreciation and preservation.
Available for Sale
Title: Mid-Century Chic: The Fashion Illustrations of Lucia Perrin
Published: Moonglade Press, 2022
Genre: Biography/History of Fashion Illustration
Mid-Century Chic presents a selection of Lucia’s sketches prefaced by a substantive contextual introduction exploring the status of fashion illustration, the alliance of art and commerce, New York’s importance in the garment industry, women’s enlarging roles, and the challenging social standards of the time, as well as the particular skill and appeal of Lucia’s professional efforts.
Available for Sale
Title: “This Is the Life”: The Diary of Jennie McLeod
Published: Moonglade Press, 2020
Genre: Biography/Diary
“This Is the Life” paints a vivid picture of the life and times of Jennie McLeod, a 20th-century college girl from the mill town of Clinton, Massachusetts. Author Leslie Perrin Wilson presents Jennie and her world through careful research, contextual narrative, and a richly annotated transcription of her 1914–1918 diary. Jennie’s distinctive personality, her family, friends, studies, and aspirations, along with the presence of larger events in the background—world war and woman’s suffrage, in particular—all come to life on the pages of this book.