Wiggin, Kate Douglas (1856 - 1923)

Genre: Children's Literature, General Fiction

Born in Philadelphia on 28 Sept. 1856, Kate Douglas Wiggin was raised there and in Portland and Hollis, Maine, where she lived for many years.

She attended the Gorham Female Seminary, the Morison Academy (Baltimore), and the Abbott Academy (Andover, Mass.

In 1873 she moved with her family to Santa Barbara, Calif., where eventually Wiggin directed a private kindergarten. She and her sister, Nora Archibald Smith, together established the California Kindergarten Training School. Wiggin herself was head of the Silver Street Kindergarten until she married lawyer Samuel B. Wiggin in 1881. They moved to New York City in 1884.

After her husband died in 1889, Wiggin moved back to Hollis where she wrote the children's book Timothy's Quest (1890 and the adult novel The Village Watch-Tower (1895). She traveled widely and remarried in 1895 to George C. Riggs, a New York businessman.

Bowdoin College awarded her an honorary degree in 1904.

Selected Bibliography

Children's Books,

  • The Birds' Christmas Carol (1887)
  • Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm(1903)
  • The New Chronicles of Rebecca (1907)
  • The Story of Patsy (1883)
  • Timothy's Quest (1890)
  • Polly Oliver's Problem (1893)
  • The Posy Ring - A Book of Verses for Children (1903)
  • Pinafore Palace: A Book of Rhymes for the Nursery (1907)
  • Susanna and Sue (1909)
  • Mother Carey's Chickens (1911)

Books for Adults

  • The Story Hour (1890, with her sister Nora)
  • A Cathedral Courtship (1893)
  • The Village Watch-Tower (1895)
  • The Republic of Childhood (1895)
  • Marm Lisa (1896)
  • Hymns for Kindergarteners (18??)
  • Penelope's Progress (1898)
  • Penelope's English Experiences (1900)
  • Penelope's Irish Experiences (1901)
  • The Diary of a Goose Girl (1902)
  • The Affair at the Inn (1904)
  • Rose O' the River (1905)
  • The Old Peabody Pew: A Christmas Romance of a Country Church (1907)
  • Arabian Nights, Their Best Known Tales (1909)
  • The Story of Waitstill Baxter (1913)
  • Penelope's Postscripts (1915)
  • Ladies in Waiting (1918)
  • The Romance of a Christmas Card (1919)
  • Homespun Tales (1920)
  • My Garden of Memory (1923) autobiography

Selected Resources