Kate Sanborn (1839–1917)

Katherine "Kate" Sanborn was born in Hanover, New Hampshire. Her father Edwin David Sanborn was a classics professor at Darmouth College and her mother Mary Ann was a niece of Daniel Webster. She was educated at home, where she met the many academics, politicians, and writers who visited the family. She was a writer by age 11, and by age 19 was teaching at Mary Institute, affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis. She became a professor of English literature at Smith College before resigning in 1886 in order to pursue a literary career in New York City. She taught elocution at Packer Institute in Brooklyn and gave public lectures on literature and literary history for 20 years. She also worked as a newspaper journalist and as a book reviewer for Scribner's Magazine. In 1885, she published The Wit of Women, a collection of anecdotes and commentary. She also designed and wrote a series of study guides to literature and edited collections of poetry and calendar books. In 1888, she bought a rundown farm at Metcalf, Massachusetts, 25 miles from Boston, and wrote about her experiences renovating and managing it in Adopting an Abandoned Farm (1891), and other farming books. She later wrote about selling that farm and moving to another in Abandoning an Adopted Farm (1894).