Reginald Wright Kauffman (1877–1959)

Reginald Wright Kauffman was an author, editor, and journalist. While he mostly wrote novels, he also wrote poetry, self-help, non-fiction, and children’s books. Politically, he was originally a socialist before becoming an independent republican. Many of his earlier novels (including “House of Bondage”) dealt with the issue of white slavery, or forced prostitution. A supporter of women’s suffrage, he represented the United States at the first Congress of Men’s Societies for Women’s Suffrage in 1912, and promoted women's suffrage while traveling through Europe and parts of Africa.

Prior to WWI, Kauffman was a reporter and editor for various circulations, including the Philadelphia North American and the Saturday Evening Post (under George Horace Lorimer). He then worked as a war correspondence during WWI. From 1914-1915, he worked in France and Belgium for the North American Newspaper Alliance. After the U.S. entered the war in 1917, he was an accredited war correspondent with the French, Belgium, British, and American forces in Europe, and was the only accredited correspondent in French waters with the U.S. Navy. Kauffman was vocally opposed to military censorship with regards to journalism. After the war, he served as a representative of the Republican party in Europe as a peace delegate and as a member of the Red Cross in 1918-1919. He served as editorial columnist for the "Washington Post," the "Boston Transcript," and the "Bangor Daily News."

Kauffman spent twelve years of his life in Geneva, Switzerland, where he established the New York Herald Tribune’s news-bureau at the League of Nations, worked for the League’s adoption of the U.S. delegation’s draft for the Narcotics Treaty, and was involved with negotiations involving the endorsement of the Hays Motion Picture Code.