Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879–1958)

Dorothea Frances Canfield was born in Lawrence, Kansas, to James Hulme Canfield, an educator, and Flavia Camp, an artist and writer. Her father became a professor at the University of Kansas and later chancellor of the University of Nebraska and president of Ohio State University. As a child, she spent much time visiting her mother's family in Vermont, which served as the setting for many of her books. At age 10, she spent a year in Paris while her mother studied art, and became fluent in French. She graduated from Ohio State University and went on to study Romance languages at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Columbia University, where she earned a doctoral degree. She co-wrote the textbook English Rhetoric and Composition (1906). In 1907, she married John Redwood Fisher, with whom she had two children. In 1911, after visiting the "children's houses" in Rome established by Maria Montessori, she endeavored to introduce the Montessori method in the USA. She translated Montessori's books into English. She and their children accompanied her husband to France when he volunteered to work with the U.S. Army ambulance service and as an officer with the Medical Corps during World War I. She worked to establish a Braille press for blinded war veterans and the Bidart home for refugee children. In 1918, she published a memoir, Home Fires in France. She also wrote 22 novels, plus short stories, educational works, and literary criticism. She was renowned for her support of women's rights and racial equality. See also The Lady from Vermont: Dorothy Canfield Fisher's Life and World by Elizabeth Yates (1971) and Dorothy Canfield Fisher – A Biography by Ida H. Washington (1982).