About Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Dorothy Canfield Fisher (February 17, 1879 – November 9, 1958) was an educational reformer, social activist, and best-selling American author in the early 20th century. She strongly supported women's rights, racial equality, and lifelong education. Eleanor Roosevelt named her one of the ten most influential women in the United States. Her writing helped increase understanding of the Montessori method of child-rearing in the U.S.; she presided over the country's first adult education program; and her service as a member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951 helped shape literary tastes in the U.S. == Biography == Dorothea Frances Canfield – named for Dorothea Brooke of the novel Middlemarch – was born on February 17, 1879, in Lawrence, Kansas to James Hulme Canfield and Flavia Camp, an artist and writer. From 1877 to 1891 her father was a University of Kansas professor with responsibility for various historical studies, and finally president of the National Education Association. Later he was chancellor of the University of Nebraska, president of Ohio State University, and librarian at Columbia University. Canfield Fisher is most closely associated with Vermont, where she and her mother made trips to the family home and where she spent her adult life. Vermont also served as the setting for many of her books. In 1899 Canfield received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Ohio State University, where she was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. She went on to study Romance languages at the University of Paris and Columbia University (where her father was Librarian from 1899) and earned a doctoral degree from Columbia with the dissertation Corneille and Racine in English (1904).
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