Susan Coolidge was born Sarah Chauncey Woolsey in 1835 in Cleveland, Ohio. She worked as a nurse during the American Civil War, after which she began to write. She lived with her parents in their house in Rhode Island until she died.
Susan Coolidge
Susan Coolidge was the pen-name of Sarah Chauncy Woolsey, who was born in 1835 into a wealthy American family in Cleveland, Ohio. When she was a young woman, she served as a nurse during the American Civil War, and on her return home, she began to write.
Her first novel was published in 1871, but with little success. She discovered, however, that her editor was also the editor of Louisa M. Alcott, the author of Little Women which had been published a few years earlier, bringing its author considerable fame. It was suggested to Susan Coolidge that she might want to write a story in a similar vein, and What Katy Did was the result. The other Katy books followed and her fame and reputation was quickly established. Although she was mainly a children’s author, she also wrote history books and edited the letters of the writers Jane Austen and Fanny Burney.
Over the years she met many other American writers and her celebrity kept her busy, but she never married. The strain and hardship of nursing in the war had affected her health, and she was ill for a great many of the last years of her life. She died in 1905, aged seventy.
