author
Katharine Ellis Barrett
1879–1961
Remembered for spirited stories about capable young women and for books shaped by a love of travel and the outdoors, this early 20th-century American writer moved easily between fiction and adventure writing.
1 Audiobook
The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted
by Katharine Ellis Barrett
About the author
Katharine Ellis Barrett was an American author born in 1879 and died in 1961. Library of Congress authority records identify her also as Katharine Ruth Ellis and note that she was born in Charles City, Iowa, studied at Vassar, and later graduated from the Wisconsin Library School.
She is best known for writing The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted (1909), a lively novel for young readers that has remained accessible through Project Gutenberg and other library collections. Records for her work also show a broader range, including Girls in the High Sierras (1924), which blends story and outdoor experience, and A Yankee in Patagonia (1931), written with Robert Barrett.
Taken together, those books suggest a writer interested not only in fiction but also in education, travel, and the practical details of active life. Even from the limited surviving records, her work has a clear appeal for readers who enjoy energetic heroines, exploration, and a window into the reading tastes of the early 1900s.