Dorothy Canfield Fisher was a best selling author of children's books in the early 1900's. She was named by Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the ten most influential women in the United States. She presided over the country's first adult education program. She brought the Montessori method of child rearing to the United States. She was one of the first women of her generation to receive a Doctoral degree in 1904. During World War I Dorothy went to France and worked with blinded soldiers. The Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award is named for her. Her father James Hulme Canfield was a professor and also President of Ohio University, her mother Flavia Camp was an artist and writer. As a child she would visit her grandfather Rev. Eli H. Canfield in Arlington, Vermont, she spent her adult life in Arlington.

From the Bennington Evening Banner November 14, 1958
The Arlington Eagle (The School Section of the paper)
Beloved Arlingtonian: Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Last Sunday morning the community of Arlington lost a faithful friend and benefactor. Dorothy Canfield Fisher. Her loss will be felt by people throughout the world and nowhere will it be felt more deeply than Arlington High School.
Education and young people were two of her greatest interests. She believed that the hope for a peaceful world rested upon a well informed younger generation.
To further this cause she made many gifts to the school such as the land for the atheletic field, a part of which became the site of the New Fisher Elementary School name in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Fisher. Other gifts include books for the school library and contributions to many school drives both big and small, a recnet one being the new bleachers in the gymnasium. But far surpassing any material assistance she gave the school as a whole was her unfailing gift of encouragement and counsel to countless students. She was always willing to help any student with words of encouragement, letters of recommendation, and friendly advice.
A gesture that typifies her warm personality was her custom of attending the first PTA meeting of the school year and welcoming the new teachers in Arlington. Many young teachers will remember her cordial words of greeting.
As a previous member of the Arlington School Board and the State Board of Education, she was well aware of school problems and always had a keen interest in any school activity large and small.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher had the greatest faith in Arlington and its young people. The success of any Arlington student will reflect, in some measure, that faith.

From The Times Record (Troy, New York) November 10, 1958
Dorothy C. Fisher, Noted Novelist, Dies In Vermont
Arlington, Vt.(AP)- Dorothy Canfield Fisher, a quiet motherly-looking woman who forged a remarkable career as novelist, scholar, translator and educator, died yesterday amid the Vermont hills she loved. She was 79.
She became famous for the novels she wrote before World War I and in the years shortly after - "The Squirrel Cage", "The Bent Twig" and "The Deepening Stream" outstanding among them. In recent years she became best known for her articles and non-fiction, and as a judge on the Book of the Month Club selection board.
A native of Lawrence, Kan., she adopted Vermont as her favorite state and her recent book "Vermont Tradition" was an eloquent statement of the philosophy and character of the state's ruggedly independent people.
One of her most recent articles told the story of a Vermont town meeting in which the voters, faced with limited local funds chose to erect a school instead of a much desired bridge.
The daughter of a prominent educator, James Hulme Canfield and of Flavia (Camp) Canfield, an artist, she had some early schooling in France, spoke French fluently and worked there during and after World War I helping refugee children. She often said she loved Vermont and France best of all places in the world.
After receiving a bachelor's degree from Ohio State University and studying at the Sorbonne in Paris, she received a Ph.D. in French from Columbia University in 1905. She was preparing to be a language teacher when, in 1907, she married James Redwood Fisher.
In education, she achieved note with her books about the pioneering work of the Italian Dr. Maria Montessori. Accomplished in Italian, she also translated Giovanni Papini's widely read "Life Of Christ".
After 1923, she and her husband made their home in Arlington in a remodeled farmhouse that had once belonged to her Vermont ancestors.
In all she wrote 35 books. Many of them were translated for distribution abroad.