A. D. T. Whitney (1824–1906)

A.D.T. (Adeline Dutton Train) Whitney was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a merchant family. She was educated from ages 13 to 18 at the private girls' school established by George Barrell Emerson. In 1843, she married Seth D. Whitney, a wealthy merchant 20 years her senior, and settled in Milton. She began writing seriously in her thirties, after her children started school. Her poems and stories first appeared in local journals. In 1859, she published Mother Goose for Grown Folks, followed by two novels, Boys at Chequasset (1861) and Faith Gartney's Girlhood (1862). Both were immediate successes. These and her many subsequent books for young people focused on the goodness of hearth and home. Mrs. Whitney privately opposed women's suffrage, and took no part in public life. Her daughter Caroline Leslie Field also became a writer.