author

Emilie Van Beil Jacobs

b. 1875

Best known for a lively early-20th-century geography text, this educator wrote for young readers by starting with the world they could see around them. Her work turns streets, schools, neighborhoods, and maps into a friendly introduction to how places connect.

1 Audiobook

Where We Live

Where We Live

by Emilie Van Beil Jacobs

About the author

Emilie Van Beil Jacobs was an American author and educator born in 1875. She is known for Where We Live: A Home Geography, a schoolbook published in 1913 and 1914 that introduces geography through everyday surroundings rather than distant places.

The book presents geography as something children can observe directly in their school, streets, town, local industries, plants, animals, and transportation. A surviving title page identifies her as Supervising Principal of the Richardson L. Wright School, Philadelphia, which suggests she wrote from practical classroom experience.

Very little biographical information appears to be readily available online beyond her birth year, authorship, and school role. Even so, Where We Live shows a clear, thoughtful approach to teaching: begin with the familiar, encourage curiosity, and build outward toward a larger understanding of the world.