Kate Douglas (Smith) Wiggin

Wiggin, Kate Douglas (Smith), 1856–1923, American author and educator, b. Philadelphia. In San Francisco she organized the first free kindergartens on the Pacific coast (1878) and with her sister established a training school for kindergarten teachers. As part of her teaching career she wrote her first book, The Story of Patsy (1883). The most popular among her many later works for children were The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887), Timothy's Quest (1890), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903), and Mother Carey's Chickens (1911).

See her autobiography, My Garden of Memory (1923); biography by her sister, Nora A. Smith (1925).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.