Lucy Fitch Perkins
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Lucy Fitch Perkins (July 12, 1865 – March 18, 1937) was an American illustrator and writer of children's books, known best for ''
Dutch Twins Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...
'' (1911) and its sequels, the ''
Twins Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...
'' series.


Biography

Lucy Fitch was born on July 12, 1865, in
Maples, Indiana Maples is an unincorporated community in Jefferson Township, Allen County, in the U.S. state of Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan ...
, to Appleton Howe and Elizabeth (née Bennett) Fitch. Her father was a teacher who moved to Maples to co-found a barrel stave factory. Her mother was a teacher. Fitch moved with her mother to
Hopkinton, Massachusetts Hopkinton is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, west of Boston. The town is best known as the starting point of the Boston Marathon, held annually on Patriots' Day each April, and as the he ...
, to live with her father's parents as her father tried to recover from a financial setback from the
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. Unhappy with the Hopkinton schools, the family moved to
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, in 1879. Fitch graduated from high school in 1883 and moved to
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,
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, to attend the
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. She met Dwight H. Perkins in her third year at the school. Fitch started to write children's fiction on a freelance basis for ''Young Folks''. She graduated in 1886 and took a job as an illustrator for the
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Educational Company of Boston. A year later, she followed Walter Scott Perry to the
Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...
in
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, to become his assistant. Fitch left on August 18, 1891, to marry Perkins and move to
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,
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. She initially tended to the household, writing only on occasion. However, after her husband struggled in the aftermath of the
Panic of 1893 The Panic of 1893 was an economic depression in the United States. It began in February 1893 and officially ended eight months later. The Panic of 1896 followed. It was the most serious economic depression in history until the Great Depression of ...
, Perkins began to write to supplement the family income. The Chicago office of the Prang Educational Company employed Perkins for the next 10 years, offering her opportunities to teach and illustrate. In 1905, her husband was appointed chief architect for the Chicago Board of Education, allowing them to support the construction of a new house in
Evanston, Illinois Evanston is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, situated on the North Shore (Chicago), North Shore along Lake Michigan. A suburb of Chicago, Evanston is north of Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skok ...
. In 1906, Perkins published her first work, ''The Goose Girl'', a collection of children's rhymes. A year later, she followed with ''A Book of Joys: A Story of a New England Summer'', but both works had limited popular appeal. In 1911, she published ''The Dutch Twins'', her first major work. The book was inspired by friend Edwin Osgood Grover, who saw a picture Perkins drew of a pair of Dutch children. Grover suggested to Perkins that she design a series centered around the twins. Perkins took the advice, and the ''Twins'' series were a popular success. She published 26 books in the ''Twins'' series for the
Houghton Mifflin Company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company ( ; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, and reference works. The company is based in the Boston Financial District. It was formerly known as the Houghto ...
. For each book, Perkins tried to interview someone who grew up in the country to understand the particular customs. In later books in the series, such as ''The American Twins of the Revolution'', history supplanted geography as the basis of the twins' backgrounds. Perkins sold more than 2 million copies of her books and was Houghton Mifflin's most profitable author. Her final book, ''The Dutch Twins and Little Brother'', was published posthumously in 1938. She died in
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, of a
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from
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on March 18, 1937; she had recently moved there with her husband in an effort to restore her health. Perkins had two children: Eleanor Ellis, a writer, and Lawrence Bradford, an architect. Perkins' book ''The Dutch Twins'' inspired children's author
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to start reading. Perkins also provided illustrations for Edith Ogden Harrison's series of fairy tales, published in the early years of the 20th century. A public school in the Big Oaks neighborhood of Chicago was named after Perkins. The school was built for K-6 students. When it opened, there was an oil painting of Perkins displayed in the hallway near the main entrance. The school and property were later sold and the block was developed with single family homes.


Selected works

* ''Prince Silverwings and Other Fairy Tales'', written by Edith Ogden Harrison (McClurg, 1902) – first of several collaborations with Harrison * ''The Goose Girl: A mother's lap book of rhymes and pictures'' (McClurg, 1906) * ''Robin Hood; His Deeds and Adventures as Recounted in the Old English Ballads'' (Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1906) Before beginning the Twins series Perkins illustrated, and sometimes contributed as editor or writer, to new editions of Aesop's fables, Anderson and Grimm fairy tales, Hawthorne's classical mythology, and Robin Hood.


Twins series (complete)

Geographical series *''The Dutch Twins'' (1911) *''The Japanese Twins'' (1912) *''The Irish Twins'' (1913) *''The Eskimo Twins'' (1914) *''The Mexican Twins'' (1916) *''The Belgian Twins'' (1917) *''The French Twins'' (1918) *''The Scotch Twins'' (1919) *''The Italian Twins'' (1920) *''The Swiss Twins'' (1922) *''The Filipino Twins'' (1923) *''The Farm Twins'' (1928) *''The Pickaninny Twins'' (1931) *''The Chinese Twins'' (1934) *''The Norwegian Twins'' (1933) *''The Spanish Twins'' (1934) *''The Dutch Twins and Little Brother'' (1938) *''The Dutch Twins Primer'' Historical series *''The Cave Twins'' (1915) *''The Spartan Twins'' (1918) *''The Puritan Twins'' (1921) *''The Colonial Twins of Virginia'' (1924) *''The American Twins of 1812'' (1925) *''The American Twins of The Revolution'' (1926) *''The Pioneer Twins'' (1927) *''The Indian Twins'' (1938)


References

* Eleanor Ellis Perkins. ''Eve Among the Puritans: A Biography of Lucy Fitch Perkins''. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1956.
Online biography
(online-literature.com)


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Perkins, Lucy Fitch 1865 births 1937 deaths American children's writers American children's book illustrators American women children's writers American women children's book illustrators People from Allen County, Indiana Writers from Evanston, Illinois Artists from Evanston, Illinois