Emily Hahn, 1905-1997, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on 14 January 1905. In 1926, she became the first woman to graduate with a mining engineering degree from the University of Wisconsin, but her career as a writer was already underway. She was first published in The New Yorker in 1924, and the magazine continued to publish her work until her death. In the 1930s, Hahn traveled extensively in Africa and Asia and wrote about her various experiences. In 1945, she moved to Dorset, England, with her husband, Charles Boxer, 1904-2000, but she returned to the United States five years later and settled in New York City. Hahn continued to publish articles and books until her death in Manhattan on 18 February 1997.

Muriel Ripperger Hanson, 1917-2000, was born in New York City on 7 June 1917. After graduating from Vassar College in 1938, she pursued a career in journalism and began writing for Woman's Day, a publication founded in 1937. On 11 May 1943, she married Woman's Day founder Donald Parker Hanson, 1901-1978. He introduced her to Emily Hahn, whom he had known at the University of Wisconsin, and the two became fast friends. Hanson died in Chatham, Massachusetts, on 23 August 2000.