Anna Steese Richardson was born in Ohio, and raised by her aunts and grandmothers in Philadelphia after the early death of her mother. Around 1883, after acquiring a Normal School diploma, she took a teaching job in Colorado. She married William Richardson, with whom she had three children; they later divorced. Richardson ran their household in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and also reported news for the local daily newspaper. In 1900, Richardson and her family moved to New York where she began writing feature articles for the women's page of the New York World. Richardson went on to write for many newspapers and magazines, often covering theatre. She reported on and helped to shape the evolving themes of the twentieth century, particularly as related to women.

An activist at heart, Richardson founded the Better Babies Bureau to which can be traced much of modern health work for mothers and infants. Richardson worked as a war correspondent for the Companion, McClure's, and the Pictorial Review during World War I in France. She later founded the Good Citizenship Bureau for the purpose of educating women in civic responsibility.

Best known as an editor and columnist of the Woman's Home Companion beginning in 1903, Richardson's career also included newspaper reporting, journalism, and play-writing. She achieved Broadway success with "Big Hearted Herbert," co-authored by Sophie Kerr in 1933, which was made into a movie. In 1936 Richardson, as Associate Editor of the Woman's Home Companion and Director of the Good Citizenship Bureau, was awarded an honorary degree of Master of Science in Business Administration by Bryant College in Providence, Rhode Island. The same year she also received the Advertising & Selling Silver Medal for "distinguished exposition of advertising as a social force," and was one of twenty-four women honored at the Career Women's Dinner. Richardson died at her home in New York City.