Kate Douglas Wiggin eBooks Kate Douglas Wiggin (September 28,
1856 - August 24, 1923) was an American educator and author of
children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She started the first free
kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free
Kindergarten). With her sister during the 1880s, she also
established a training school for kindergarten teachers. Kate
Wiggin devoted her adult life to the welfare of children in an
era when children were commonly thought of as cheap labour. Kate
Douglas Smith Wiggin was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of
lawyer Robert N. Smith, and of Welsh descent. Kate herself
experienced a happy childhood, even though it was saddened by
the American Civil War and her father's death. Kate and her
sister Nora were still quite young when their widowed mother
moved her little family from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine,
then, three years later, upon her remarriage, to the little
village of Hollis. There Kate matured in rura