Miss Priscilla E. Moulder

Priscilla Emily Moulder was born on June 9, 1867, in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, to Harriett and George Moulder, an innkeeper and shopkeeper. She had one older brother, James G., and a younger sister, Louisa. Moulder left school at age 13 to work in a factory as a worsted spinner. 

At the age of 16, Moulder joined the Girls’ Friendly Society. When her essay on “Where I Spent My Summer Holiday” was awarded second place in a writing contest, she was inspired to pursue a career in journalism. Her first published article appeared in Young Folk’s Paper, and her first paid contribution, a description of a football match, appeared in a local newspaper. She continued to work in the factory while contributing to newspapers and magazines until age 33, when she left factory work to pursue journalism full-time.

Moulder was proposed for membership in the Society of Women Journalists by Walter Smith, editor of the Yorkshire Weekly Post. She was a member of the Society from 1904 to 1913. A freelance journalist, her work appeared a variety of newspapers and magazines, including Book Monthly, Chambers’ Journal, Daily Chronicle, Good Words, Home Notes, Humanitarian, Leisure Hour, Lloyd’s Weekly News, Manchester Guardian, Millgate Monthly, New Age, Our Home, People’s Journal, People’s Penny Stories, Saint George, Sunday Chronicle, T.P.’s Weekly, Tribune, Weekly Budget, Westminster Review, Woman, Woman’s Signal, World’s Work, and Young Woman, among others. 

Her journalism often drew on her personal experience. In a 1907 article titled “How I Achieved Success,” she noted that “I have been very careful to choose subjects in which I felt fairly at home; sketches of factory work, factory life, factory methods, the working classes in their homes, varied occasionally by descriptive articles of places and persons of interest.” 

Moulder died in 1944 at the age of 76.