Birthday profile

Virginia Lee Burton

Virginia Lee Burton, American author and illustrator (died 1968)

Born
August 30, 1909
Died
October 15, 1968
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1909

About Virginia Lee Burton

Virginia Lee Burton, also known by her married name Virginia Demetrios, was an American illustrator and children's book author. She wrote and illustrated seven children's books, including Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939) and The Little House (1943), which won the Caldecott Medal. She also illustrated six books by other authors. Burton founded the textile collective Folly Cove Designers in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, which had numerous museum exhibitions. Notably, Burton's father served as the first Dean of Student Affairs for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1902-1921). Burton had an older sister, Christine, and younger brother, Alexander Ross Burton, in addition to their father's first two sons, Harold Hitz Burton and Felix Arnold Burton. Her mother was Lena Yates, a lyric poet and artist from England whose poetry was first published at age 20.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Virginia Lee Burton timeline

  1. Notably, Burton's father served as the first Dean of Student Affairs for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1902-1921).
  2. She wrote and illustrated seven children's books, including Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939) and The Little House (1943), which won the Caldecott Medal.

The world when Virginia Lee Burton was born

Virginia Lee Burton was born in 1909. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1909

  • Best-selling book"The Inner Shrine" – Basil King

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentHonus Wagner leads Pittsburgh Pirates to World Series victory
  • Top headlineRobert Peary claims to reach the North Pole
  • Technology milestoneBakelite (first fully synthetic plastic) invented
  • Notable inventionBakelite plastic
  • World population~1.69B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWilliam Howard Taft
  • U.S. population88.8M

1909 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Virginia Lee Burton's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19092026
Population88.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.