Founded by Bertha Mahony Miller in 1924 with a mission to inform the public about the best in children’s writing, The Horn Book Magazine is still in business nearly 100 years later. You can read articles about children’s literature and subscribe to the magazine on the Horn Book’s website. After Rachel Field won the Newbery Medal for Hitty: Her First Hundred Years in 1930, Hitty became an American celebrity. The Horn Book Magazine published three articles about Hitty in the February 1930 issue, which I will summarize in this post. You can read all of the articles mentioned on archive.org. How Hitty Happened By Rachel Fieldpp. 22-26 In 1928, Rachel…
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Who is Hitty?
I first read Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field when I was a teenager, and I still have the somewhat battered hardcover copy which I purchased used for $1. The edition was printed in October, 1943, and it had the colored frontispiece of Hitty sitting for her daguerreotype, illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop. I remember thinking at the time that it was a really good story, and as a young doll collector, I would have loved to have my own Hitty doll. But few people were making Hitty dolls at that time Above: photo of the real Hitty in the Stockbridge Library Museum in 2024 (courtesy of Beth…
