Born Rachel Lyman Field in New York City in 1894
(one source says Stockbridge, Massachusetts)

Grew Up

Studied at Radcliffe College (While there she was a member of the famous '47 Workshop' at Harvard)

Married in 1935 Arthur S Pederson

Rachel Field traveled widely throughout America, making speeches and giving readings. She spent her summers in "Bunchberry Bungalow" on Sutton Island, one of the Cranberry Isles, off Maine near Mt Desert Island, and chose this familiar Maine coastline as the setting for Calico Bush (1931) a story about a 'bound out girl' from France in the early days of Maine settlement. Freeport, Maine was the starting point for the adventures of the wooden doll Hitty in Hitty:Her First Hundred Years (1929), for which she was awarded the John Newbery Medal in 1930. Hitty is based on an antique doll that Rachel and the book's illustrator, Dorothy P. Lathrop, found in an antique shop in New York City. Another book, Prayer for a Child, won a Caldecott Medal (1945)

Her book of plays The Cross-Stitch Heart and Other One-Act Plays (1927), was also for children

Her books of poetry include her first book, The Pointed People: Verses and Silhouettes (1924) and Taxis and Toadstools (1926).

She also wrote novels for adults: Time Out of Mind (1935) set on Sutton Island, All This and Heaven Too (1938) and And Now Tomorrow (1942)

Perhaps Rachel Field's greatest downeast book was God's Pocket, (1934) "The Story of Captain Samuel Hadlock, Junior of Cranberry Isles, Maine." Field had been given Captain Hadlock's journal by his grandson, Samuel Sanford. From this source and Sanford's own accounts of his grandfather, the author pieced together a most remarkable tale.

Rachel Field was one of America's best loved and most distinguished contributors to children's literature. Her stories, poems, and plays have been delighting young readers for many years.

Died 1942 (one source says 1943)