Background
Cruger was born in Oscawana in Westchester County, New York, the daughter of Captain Nicholas Cruger (1801-1868) and Eliza Kortright Cruger.
Cruger was born in Oscawana in Westchester County, New York, the daughter of Captain Nicholas Cruger (1801-1868) and Eliza Kortright Cruger.
Cruger's novels examine social problems through a Christian viewpoint. Cruger's first novel, Hyperaesthesia (1886), was about several people at a New York resort suffering from the title malady, a condition of abnormal sensitivity. Cruger's novel examines female hysteria in a way that presages the work of later historians.
Her novel A Den of Thieves (1886) is about a newlywed couple who become crusaders in the temperance movement. Her utopian novel How She Did It. Or, Comfort on $150 a Year (1888) is about a woman who builds her own home and lives frugally, complete with home blueprints, recipes, grocery costs, and other specifics.
Her final novel, Brotherhood (1891), blames worker unrest on labor unions, depicting leaders of unions as "interfering agitators". Cruger also wrote the novel The Vanderheyde Manor House (1887) and translated Labor, the Divine Command (1890) by Leo Tolstoy.