Born: 17 February 1879, United States
Died: 9 November 1958
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Dorothea Frances Canfield
Educational reformer, social activist and best-selling American author Dorothy Canfield Fisher advocated for women’s rights, racial equality and lifelong education in the early 1900s. Eleanor Roosevelt considered her one of the country’s 10 most influential women.
Canfield Fisher brought the Montessori method of education to the United States, managed the country’s first adult education program and was a member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951. She was appointed to Vermont’s State Board of Education in 1919 to help improve public education in rural areas, and spent years advocating for education, rehabilitation and reform in prisons, partiularly women’s prisons.
She was fluent in five languages and wrote novels, short stories, memoirs and educational works as well as literary critiques and translations. She wrote 22 novels and 18 non-fiction works, and her 1921 The Brimming Cup has been called “the first modern best-seller to present criticism of racial prejudice.”
In 1917, she did war relief work in France, founding the Bidart Home for Children to help refugees and arranging the printing of books in Braille for blind veterans. After World War I, she led the U.S. committee that secured pardons for conscientious objectors, and ensured financial and immigration support for Jewish educators, professionals, and intellectuals. When her son was killed during World War II, she arranged a Harvard Medical School fellowship for the two Philippine surgeons who tried to save his life.