Susan M. Coolidge

Susan Coolidge was born on 29 January 1835 into a wealthy, influential family, in Cleveland, Ohio, and was christened Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. She was the niece of Theodore Dwight Woolsey, the President of Yale university from 1846 till 1871. She worked as a nurse during the American Civil War, after which she started writing. Susan Coolidge never married, and resided at her family home in Newport, Rhode Island, until her death. She was a popular writer of children’s fiction, and although she wrote other books and poetry, she is mostly remembered for her works on children’s fiction. She is best known for her classic children’s novel What Katy Did (1872). The fictional Carr family was modelled after her own, with Katy Carr inspired by herself. The brothers and sisters in the Carr family were modelled after her own four younger siblings. Susan Coolidge died in Newport, Rhode Island in 1905.