Kate Douglas Wiggin: Dedicated Kindergarten Educator, and Children’s Author

Photo courtesy of the George Grantham Bain Collection(Library of Congress).

Kate Douglas Wiggin was an American author and composer best known for her children’s book, ‘Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm’. She also composed a number of children’s songs. In 1878, she created the first free kindergarten west of the Rocky Mountains, as well as setting up a training school for kindergarten teachers. In total, Wiggin managed to set up more than sixty kindergartens in low-income areas, where children were often used as cheap labour.

Sporadic education in childhood

Kate Douglas Wiggin was born on September 28, 1856, in Philadelphia. She was the daughter of Welsh lawyer Robert N. Smith, and Helen Elizabeth Smith. She had a younger sister named Nora.

For the first few years, Kate had a happy childhood in Philadelphia, until tragedy struck — the death of her father. While away on a business trip, Kate’s father suddenly fell ill, and died. Kate was three years old, and her younger sister was just an infant. Kate’s widowed mother decided to move her and her two young girls from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine.

Three years later, her mother remarried to Dr. Albion Bradbury. The family moved again — this time to the small rural community of Hollis, Maine. There, Kate thrived in the rural environment, along with Nora…