Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Born	February 17, 1879(1879-02-17) Lawrence, Kansas
Died	November 9, 1958(1958-11-09) (aged 79) Arlington, Vermont
Nationality	American
Other names	Dorothea Frances Canfield
Occupation	writer, educator
Known for	Montessori method; adult education; Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award

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 as one of the ten most influential women in the United States. Dorothy Canfield worked with Maria Montessori when in Rome in 1911-12, wrote A Montessori Mother (1912) and brought the Montessori method of child-rearing to the United States. She wrote Why Stop Learning? (1927) and 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. Dorothy Canfield also wrote The Bent Twig (1915), Home Fires in France (1918), The Day of Glory (1919), The Brimming Cup (1921) and The Home-Maker (1924), which was reprinted by Persephone Books in 1999. Later novels are Her Son's Wife (1926), The Deepening Stream (1930), Seasoned Timber (1939). A collection of 17 of her stories was Four Square (1949).

Biography

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

Dorothea Frances Canfield, as she was named at birth, was born in Lawrence, Kansas, on February 17, 1879. 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. She was also a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Canfield went on to study Romance languages at Columbia University and in 1904 received a doctoral degree there; Corneille and Racine in English (1904). With G. R. Carpenter from Columbia she co-wrote English Rhetoric and Composition (1906). 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 forayed into literary criticism and translation.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher's son, Battalion Surgeon Captain James Fisher, with his comrades during World War II, shortly before he was killed in the Philippines

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 followed her husband to France in 1916 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 James became a surgeon and captain in the U.S. Army during World War II. He served with the Alamo Scouts for three months at the end of 1944, following which he was attached to a Ranger unit which carried out the raid to free POWs imprisoned at Cabanatuan in the Philippines. The raid was a great success, with the Rangers suffering only two fatalities. 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?"

Fisher died at the age of 79, in Arlington, Vermont, in 1958.^[1]

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.

A dormitory at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, is named for Fisher.

References

1. ^ "Biography". The Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award. http://www.dcfaward.org/Biography/index.htm. Retrieved June 2, 2010. 

External links

• Works by Dorothy Canfield at Project Gutenberg
• Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award
• A Montessori Mother, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
• Inventory of the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Collection, Special Collections, University of Vermont Library

Persondata
Name	Fisher, Dorothy Canfield
Alternative names	Canfield, Dorothy Frances (birth name)
Short description	Children's writer, novelist, educator, activist
Date of birth	February 17, 1879
Place of birth	Lawrence, Kansas, United States
Date of death	November 9, 1958
Place of death	Arlington, Vermont, United States