Dorothy Kunhardt (née Dorothy Meserve; September 29, 1901 – December 23, 1979) was an American children's-book author, best known for the baby book ''

Pat the Bunny ''Pat the Bunny'' is the first "touch and feel" interactive children's book, written and illustrated by Dorothy Kunhardt. Since its publication in 1940, it has been a perennial best-seller in the United States. Rather than follow a linear nar ...

.'' She was also a historian and writer about the life of U.S. President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...

Works

Kunhardt wrote nearly 50 books, including one of the bestselling children's books in history, ''

,'' which has sold over six million copies. She initially wrote it for her youngest child Edith Kunhardt Davis. Other works include ''Twenty Days,'' an account of

Lincoln's assassination On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, while attending the play ''Our American Cousin'' at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head ...

and the twenty days that followed, which she wrote with her son, Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr.; ''Tiny Animal Stories''; ''The Telephone Book''; ''Lucky Mrs. Ticklefeather''; ''Brave Mr. Buckingham''; ''Junket is Nice'' (1933); ''Wise Old Aard-Vark'' (1936); and ''Now Open the Box''.

Personal life

A daughter of historian Frederick Hill Meserve, she was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

and graduated from

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United Sta ...

in 1923. She married Philip B. Kunhardt, Sr. (son of George E. Kunhardt), a New Yorker and a

Harvard Crimson football The Harvard Crimson football program represents Harvard University in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA). Harvard's football program is one of the oldest in the world, having begun ...

letterwinner In sports or activities in the United States, a letterman is a high school or college student who has met a specified level of participation or performance on a varsity team. Overview The term comes from the practice of awarding each such par ...

. Their home in

Morristown, New Jersey Morristown () is a town and the county seat of Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...

professor emeritus

George Cabot Lodge II George Cabot Lodge II (born July 7, 1927) is an American professor and former politician. In 1962, he was the Republican nominee for a special election to succeed John F. Kennedy in the United States Senate, but was defeated by Ted Kennedy. He ...

*Philip Bradish Kunhardt, Jr. (1928–2006), former reporter and managing director of ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'' magazine and producer of documentaries such as

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...

’s ''The American President''; married to the former Katharine Trowbridge and had 6 children, including documentary filmmaker Peter Kunhardt, whose son is Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr. *Kenneth Bradish Kunhardt (1930–1995), stockbroker; married to the former Edith L. Woodruff of New York City, former schoolteacher, 4 children. Woodruff is related to the Coolidge family of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...

through her mother. *Edith Kunhardt Davis (1937–2020) children's author and illustrator

Selected works

Now Open the Box (1934)
Junket is Nice (1935)
''

'' (1940)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kunhardt, Dorothy 1901 births 1979 deaths American children's writers Historians of Abraham Lincoln Bryn Mawr College alumni People from Morristown, New Jersey Writers from New Jersey Writers from New York City American women historians 20th-century American historians 20th-century American women writers Historians from New York (state) American women children's writers