Lucy Fitch Perkins

Lucy Fitch Perkins (July 12, 1865 – March 18, 1937) was an American illustrator and writer of children's books, known best for Dutch Twins and its sequels, the Twins series.

Biography

Lucy Fitch was born on July 12, 1865, in Maples, Indiana, to Appleton Howe and Elizabeth (née Bennett) Fitch. Her father was a teacher who moved to Maples to co-found a barrel stave factory. Her mother was a teacher. Fitch moved with her mother to Hopkinton, Massachusetts, to live with her father's parents as her father tried to recover from a financial setback from the Panic of 1873. Unhappy with the Hopkinton schools, the family moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1879. Perkins' house in Evanston, Illinois, designed by husband Dwight H. Perkins Fitch graduated from high school in 1883 and moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to attend the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She met Dwight H. Perkins in her third year at the school. Fitch started to write children's fiction on a freelance basis for Young Folks. She graduated in 1886 and took a job as an illustrator for the Prang Educational Company of Boston. A year later, she followed Walter Scott Perry to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, to become his assistant. Fitch left on August 18, 1891, to marry Perkins and move to Chicago, Illinois.

Perkins also provided illustrations for Edith Ogden Harrison's series of fairy tales, published in the early years of the 20th century.

A public school in the Big Oaks neighborhood of Chicago was named after Perkins. The school was built for K-6 students. When it opened, there was an oil painting of Perkins displayed in the hallway near the main entrance. The school and property were later sold and the block was developed with single family homes.

Selected works

Prince Silverwings and Other Fairy Tales, written by Edith Ogden Harrison (McClurg, 1902) – first of several collaborations with Harrison The Goose Girl: A mother's lap book of rhymes and pictures (McClurg, 1906) Robin Hood; His Deeds and Adventures as Recounted in the Old English Ballads (Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1906)

Before beginning the Twins series Perkins illustrated, and sometimes contributed as editor or writer, to new editions of Aesop's fables, Anderson and Grimm fairy tales, Hawthorne's classical mythology, and Robin Hood.

Twins series (complete)

Geographical series

The Dutch Twins (1911) The Japanese Twins (1912) The Irish Twins (1913) The Eskimo Twins (1914) The Mexican Twins (1916) The Belgian Twins (1917) The French Twins (1918) The Scotch Twins (1919) The Italian Twins (1920) The Swiss Twins (1922) The Filipino Twins (1923) The Farm Twins (1928) The Pickaninny Twins (1931) The Chinese Twins (1934) The Norwegian Twins (1933) The Spanish Twins (1934) The Dutch Twins and Little Brother (1938) The Dutch Twins Primer

Historical series

The Cave Twins (1915) The Spartan Twins (1918) The Puritan Twins (1921) The Colonial Twins of Virginia (1924) The American Twins of 1812 (1925) The American Twins of The Revolution (1926) The Pioneer Twins (1927) The Indian Twins (1938)