Miss Minnie Maud Glidden was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA on 5 December 1865. The youngest of six children, she was the daughter of Carlos Glidden and Phoebe Jane “Jennie” Blackman, natives of Ohio and Connecticut, respectively. 

Her father, a lawyer and amateur mechanic, co-patented the first commercially successful typewriter in 1868, the "Sholes and Glidden" typewriter. Her mother was an artist and painter of miniatures. 

After her initial schooling Minnie was educated at colleges in Chicago and in Columbia, New York, as well as attending the summer schools of Harvard and Cornell. She received her degree from Columbia and was licensed to teach in New York and Rhode Island. Minnie settled Brooklyn where she worked at the Pratt Institute Kindergarten in Greenpoint from December 1898 onwards. She is credited with inventing kindergarten materials and paper exercises for kindergarten training and was the author of A Mathematical Study of Foebel’s Building Gifts Seventh and Eighth. 

Miss Glidden was aboard the Carpathia as a first cabin passenger and was travelling with fellow Pratt Kindergarten teacher Grace Parsons, both headed to Rome to visit schools established by Madame Montessori. After that ship rescued the survivors of the Titanic disaster, she continued with her voyage to Italy, returning to the USA three months later. 

After the closure of Pratt Institute Kindergarten in 1917, Miss Glidden taught English at the Randall School in Madison, Wisconsin before becoming a member of the editorial staff of Natural History, published by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. She held that post until forced to retire following an automobile accident. 

Minnie never married and had no biological children of her own; however, her obituary states that she adopted a boy (b. 20 March 1906 in Brooklyn), naming him after her own father. 

Minnie Glidden spent her final days in a nursing home in Brooklyn; afflicted with senility, she died following pneumonia on 28 December 1938 and was buried two days later in Forest Home Cemetery.