Biography of E.B. White

E.B. White, actually named Elwyn Brooks White was a well-known author at one time. He was born on July 11, 1899 in Mt. Vernon New York. He died October 1, 1985. He was born to Samuel Tilly White, and his mother was Jessie Hart. There were 5 children in all, three boys, and two girls, and Elwyn was the youngest child. Elwyn's dad was a piano manufacturer who did quite well for himself and the family.

After Elwyn graduated from high school, he then went on to serve in the army. After he was out of the army, he then attended Cornell University where he earned his bachelor of arts degree back in the year of 1921. When Elwyn was a student at Cornell, he became editor of the school's newspaper The Cornell Daily Sun. Elwyn also wrote articles for another paper known as The Seattle Times along with the Seattle Post Intelligencer. One of his jobs was to also post ads as well as write, which he did all this before he returned to New York City in 1924.

In 1929, Elwyn married Kathryn Sergeant Angell in 1929. Kathryn was an editor herself and an author who wrote Onward and Upward in the Garden under her married name Katherine White. Kathryn had a son from a former marriage namely Roger Angell who was a fiction editor for many years for The New Yorker. She and Elwyn had another son together who was Joel White. Joel was a US naval architect. It was also the year of 1929 when together with James Thurber, they composed a book, "Is Sex Necessary, Or Why You Feel the Way You Do." This book consisted of a lot of humor.

When the year of 1927 came along, Elwyn became part of the newspaper staff for The New Yorker Magazine. This was a long time job, as he was a regular author there for nearly 60 years. For something different to write, it was around the later part of the 1930s that Elwyn wanted to give writing children's books a try. He wrote Stuart Little which came out in 1945, and that book was followed by another children's book, Charlotte's Web in 1952. These books both received great honors in 1970, as they both won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal. There was a third children's book which Elwyn wrote the same year known as The Trumpet of the Swan. This book has also received a couple of awards, one of them being the William Allen White Award from Kansas.