Kate Douglas Wiggin

Kate Douglas Wiggin was an American educator and author of children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. 

Born on September 28, 1856 in Philadelphia, to Robert Noah and Helen Elizabeth Smith, Kate experienced a happy childhood, though it was colored by the American Civil War and her father's death. She and her sister Nora were still quite young when their widowed mother moved her little family from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine, and then, three years later, upon her remarriage to Albion Bradbury, to the little village of Hollis. There she matured in rural surroundings, with her sister and her new baby brother, Philip.

Kate received a good education over the course of her childhood (though somewhat spotty), which consisted of a short stint at a "dame school", some home schooling under the "capable, slightly impatient, somewhat sporadic" instruction of her stepfather, a brief spell at the district school, a year as a boarder at the Gorham Female Seminary, a winter term at Morison Academy in Baltimore, Maryland, and a few months' stay at Abbot Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where she graduated with the class of 1873. Although rather casual, this was more education than most women received at the time. After her graduation at age 17, Kate's family moved to Santa Barbara, California, in hopes of easing Albion's lung disease; unfortunately, he died three years later.

(From a literary point of view her childhood was most distinctive for her encounter with the novelist Charles Dickens. Her mother and another relative had gone to hear Dickens read in Portland, but Wiggin, aged 11, was thought to be too young to warrant an expensive ticket. The following day, however, she found herself on the same train as Dickens and engaged him in a lively conversation for the course of the journey, an experience which she later detailed in a short memoir, A Child's Journey with Dickens (1912).)

Kate Wiggin devoted her adult life to the welfare of children in an era when children were commonly thought of as cheap labor. A kindergarten training class was opening in Los Angeles under Emma Marwedel (1818–1893), and Kate enrolled. After graduation, in 1878, she headed the first free kindergarten in California, on Silver Street in the slums of San Francisco. The children were "street Arabs of the wildest type", but Kate had a loving personality and dramatic flair. By 1880 she was forming a teacher-training school in conjunction with her sister Nora and the Silver Street kindergarten.

In 1881, Kate married (Samuel) Bradley Wiggin, a San Francisco lawyer. According to the customs of the time, she was required to resign her teaching job, but, still devoted to her school, she began to raise money for it through writing. In 1883 her first book, The Story of Patsy, was privately published; and in 1887 she achieved her first major triumph with The Bird's Christmas Carol. Both of these privately printed books were reissued commercially by Houghton Mifflin in 1889, with enormous success.

Every book she wrote after that sold very well, and she also became extremely popular in Great Britain, especially for her Penelope books, about an American girl's adventures in Britain. After Samuel's sudden death in 1889, Kate grieved but also traveled frequently and met George Riggs on her way to England in 1894. They hit it off and were married in New York the following year. They spent a great deal of time together in Scotland and England, where she was regarded as a kind of unofficial ambassadress for the United States. She would, in fact, die in England on August 24, 1923.

For all her earlier successes as a writer, nothing came close to the reception of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm in 1903. Even Mark Twain, for all his legendary fierceness, was so charmed by it that he described it as "beautiful book". The irrepressible Rebecca, also appeared in a sequel: The New Chronicles of Rebecca, which was published in 1907. There have been stage versions and films, the most memorable of which is the 1921 silent version, with Mary Pickford in the title role. Rebecca has been described as "the nicest child in American literature," but this does not mean that she is all sugary sweet: it is just that she never fails to captivate the reader.

Selected works:

• The Story of Patsy (1883)
• The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887)
• Timothy's Quest (1890), illustrated by Oliver Herford
• Polly Oliver's Problem (1893)
• A Cathedral Courtship, and Penelope's English Experiences (1893)
• The Village Watch-Tower (1895)
• Penelope's Progress (1898)
• Penelope's Travels in Scotland (1898)
• Penelope's Irish Experiences (1901)
• The Diary of a Goose Girl (1902), illus. Claude A. Shepperson
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903)
• Half-a-Dozen Housekeepers (1903)
• Rose o' the River (1905)
• New Chronicles of Rebecca (1907)
• Homespun Tales (1907)
• The Old Peabody Pew (1907)
• Susanna and Sue (1909)
• Mother Carey's Chickens (1911)
• Robinetta (1911)
• A Child's Journey with Dickens (1912)
• The Story of Waitstill Baxter (1913)^[14]
• The Romance of a Christmas Card (1916)
• A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story (1893)
• Marm Lisa
• My Garden of Memory (autobiography, published posthumously in 1923)

With Nora A. Smith

• The Story Hour: a book for the home and kindergarten (1890), LCCN 14-19353
• Golden Numbers: a book of verse for youth, eds. (1902), LCCN 02-27230
• The Posy Ring: a book of verse for children, eds. (1903) – "companion volume", LCCN 03-5775
• The Fairy Ring, eds. (1906); truncated as Fairy Stories Every Child Should Know (1942), illus. Elizabeth MacKinstry LCCN 42-51972
• Magic Casements: A Second Fairy Book, eds. (1907)
• Pinafore Palace: a book of rhymes for the nursery, eds. (1907)
• Tales of Laughter: A Third Fairy Book, eds. (1908)
• The Arabian Nights: their best-known tales, eds. (1909), illus. Maxfield Parrish
• Tales of Wonder: A Fourth Fairy Book, eds. (1909)
• The Talking Beasts: a book of fable wisdom, eds. (1911)
• An Hour with the Fairies (1911)
• Twilight Stories: more tales for the story hour, eds. (1925), LCCN 25-17938
• The Story Hour. A Book for the Home and Kingergarten
• Children's Rights
• The Republic of Childhood (3 volumes)
• Marm Lisa

About Kate Douglas Wiggin

• Kate Douglas Wiggin as Her Sister Knew Her (1925)

Filmography[edit]

• A Bit o' Heaven (1917), directed by Lule Warrenton, based on the novel The Birds' Christmas Carol
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), starring Mary Pickford, directed by Marshall Neilan (based on the novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm)
• Rose o' the River (1919), directed by Robert Thornby (based on the novel Rose o' the River)
• Timothy's Quest (1922), directed by Sidney Olcott (based on the story Timothy's Quest)
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1932), directed by Alfred Santell (based on the novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm)
• Timothy's Quest (1936), directed by Charles Barton (based on the story Timothy's Quest)
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), starring Shirley Temple, directed by Allan Dwan (based on the novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm)
• Mother Carey's Chickens (1938), directed by Rowland V. Lee (based on the novel Mother Carey's Chickens)
• Summer Magic (1963), a Walt Disney production starring Hayley Mills, directed by James Neilson (based on the novel Mother Carey's Chickens)
• Christmas World: "The Bird's Christmas Carol" (2019), a Once Upon a Tale Entertainment presentation, directed by James Arrow (uncreditedly, based on the novel The Birds' Christmas Carol)