Ella Farman Pratt

Born Eliza Anna Farman on November 1, 1837, in Augusta, New York, she first worked as a teacher. She later moved to Michigan with her friend Emma L. Shaw, where they tried farming together—a life experience that inspired her 1879 book How Two Girls Tried Farming, published under the pen name Dorothea Alice Shepherd. She also wrote as Ella Farman.

Farman became the founding editor of Wide Awake, a popular magazine for boys and girls, and edited it from 1875 to 1891. She wrote numerous children’s books, including A Little Woman, The Cooking Club of Tu-Whit Hollow, Happy Children, and The Little Cave-Dwellers. She died in Warner, New Hampshire, on May 22, 1907.