Ferber moved to Appleton, Wisconsin when she was 12, where she attended Ryan High School. After graduation, and having a natural talent for writing, she took a job as a reporter for the Appleton Daily Crescent. Fired by the Crescent, she moved to Milwaukee where she worked for the Milwaukee Journal, but she returned to Appleton soon after due to ill health. In 1910, she published her first story, The Homely Heroine, in Everybody's Magazine and the following year her first novel, Dawn O'Hara appeared. She published a series of 30 stories of a travelling saleswoman, Emma McChestney, which were very popular. In 1924, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel So Big (which was made into the film Giant in 1956). During the 1920's and 1930's, Ferber was the most successful and widely-read female author in America. A prolific writer, her other works include Fanny Herself (1917), Gigolo (1922), Showboat (1926), Hard to Get (1929), Cimarron (1929), American Beauty (1931), Come and Get It (1935), No Room At the Inn (1941), Ice Palace (1958) and her autobiography, A Kind of Magic (1963). |
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