Dorothea Frances Canfield (1879 – 1958), who published as Dorothy Canfield Fisher, was an American author, educational reformer and activist, born in Lawrence, Kansas. Her parents named her after Dorothea Brooke from the novel, Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans).
Best known for writing the beloved children’s book, Understood Betsy (1916), Fisher brought Montessori education to the United States, supported adult education, and selected offerings for the Book of the Month club from 1925 to 1952. Eleanor Roosevelt named her one of the ten most influential women in the United States. Fisher died in 1958 in Arlington, Vermont, the setting of her famed book. We feature Understood Betsy in our collection of Books for Young Readers.