U.S. #2785
29¢ Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Children’s Classics
Issue Date: October 23, 1993
City: Louisville, KY
Quantity: 37,550,000
Printed By: American Bank Note Co.
Printing Method: Lithographed and engraved
Perforations: 11
Color: Multicolored
Although she wrote more than 20 children’s books, Kate Douglas Wiggin is best remembered for her endearing novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Born Kate Smith in Philadelphia in 1856, she spent her childhood in Maine.
Moving to California at age seventeen, she established the first kindergarten in the West, as well as a training school for teachers. To raise funds for her kindergarten projects, Wiggin began writing children’s books. Her first novel, The Story of Patsy, was published in 1883, and was followed four years later by the enormously popular The Birds’ Christmas Carol. Her greatest triumph, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, was published in 1903.
One of the few stories for young girls to rival Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, this lively tale tells the adventures of Rebecca Randall, who leaves Sunnybrook Farm after her father’s death to live with her aunts. Many of the novel’s characters, places, and events were taken from Wiggin’s childhood in Maine.
In addition to writing children’s stories, she also wrote several adult books and an autobiography.