some speculate laura redden searing used the pen name howard glyndon due to the gender biased national attention given to male writers of the time. the name was officially adopted during the american civil war as a correspondent for the st. louis republican. this brings up the possibility that the pen name disassociated her identity from critics to her union army sympathies. however, in all of her published works, the pseudonym was accompanied by her real name in smaller letters. this indicates that the pseudonym was not to conceal her gender or identity. it is likely that the double identity was to defy the expectations of what a female writer of that era could produce.