 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, colonial American-era polymath and prime mover of America's founding, Benjamin Franklin, ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra, and the important figures and events of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692–93 in colonial Massachusetts.Schiff was born in Adams, Massachusetts, to Morton Schiff, the president Schiff Clothing, a store founded by Schiff's great-grandfather in 1897, and Helen, a professor of French literature at North Adams State college (now called Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts).Schiff then graduated from Phillips Academy (Andover) preparatory school, and subsequently earned her B.A.