Dorothy Canfield Fisher

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A quote by Dorothy Canfield Fisher in the Vermont State House's Hall of Inscriptions discusses her adopted state Vermont's motto Freedom and Unity – the relationship of individual freedom as balanced with the needs of the community.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early decades of the Twentieth century. She was named by Eleanor Roosevelt one of the ten most influential women in the United States. Dorothy Canfield brought the Montessori method of child rearing to the United States, presided over the country's first adult education program, and shaped literary tastes by serving as a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951.

Her best-known work today is probably Understood Betsy, a children's book about a little orphaned girl who is sent to live with her cousins in Vermont. Though the book can be read purely for pleasure, it also describes a schoolhouse which is run much in the style of the Montessori method, for which Canfield was one of the first and most vocal advocates.

[edit] Biography

Born in Lawrence, Kansas on February 17, 1879, her given name at birth was Dorothea Frances Canfield. Her father was James Hulme Canfield, a college professor at the University of Kansas and the University of Nebraska, and president of Ohio State University; her mother, Flavia Camp, was an artist and writer. However, Canfield is most closely associated with Vermont, where she spent her adult life, and which served as the setting for many of her books.

In 1899 Dorothy Canfield received a B.A. from Ohio State University. Canfield went on to study Romance languages at Columbia University, and in 1904 was one of the few women of her generation to receive a doctoral degree. She was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Dartmouth College, and also received honorary degrees from the University of Nebraska, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Smith, Williams, Ohio State University, and the University of Vermont. She spoke five languages fluently, and in addition to writing novels, short stories, memoirs, and educational works, she also forayed into literary criticism and translation.

In 1907 she married John Redwood Fisher, and together they had two children, a son and a daughter. Another concern of Dorothy Canfield was her war work. She went to France during World War I, and worked with blinded soldiers. She also established a convalescent home for refugee French children from the invaded areas. William Lyon Phelps comments, "All her novels, are autobiographical, being written exclusively out of her own experience and observation."^{[citation needed]}

Her son John became a surgeon and captain in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was attached to a Ranger unit which carried out the raid to free POW's imprisoned at Cabanatuan. The raid was a great success, with the Rangers suffering only two casualties. Captain Fisher was one, mortally wounded by a mortar shell. As he lay dying the next day, his last words were "Did we get them all out?"

The Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award, named after her, is a unique award for new American children's books, as the winner is chosen by the vote of child readers.