Margaret Sidney: The Five Little Peppers and Their Creator

Remember Phronsie Pepper and the little brown house in Badgerton? Both were the fictional creations of Harriett Mulford Stone Lothrop, who wrote about the beloved Pepper family under the pseudonym Margaret Sidney. Born June 22, 1844 in New Haven, Connecticut, Harriett Stone was the daughter of architect Sidney Mason Stone. In 1878 she began sending short stories to Wide Awake, a children's magazine published by Daniel Lothrop. Eventually two stories--"Polly Pepper's Chicken Pie" and "Phronsie Pepper's New Shoes"--caught the special attention of the editor, who wanted more Pepper stories, and of the publisher himself, who married the author in 1881. That was the same year his company published The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, the first of twelve books about the cheerful Pepper clan.

In 1883 Harriett and Daniel Lothrop took up residence in historic Concord, Massachusetts, at a house called the Wayside, which had previously been home to Louisa May Alcott and then to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Attracted to the house especially for its connection to Hawthorne, the Lothrops were actively interested in the historical preservation of their home. Harriett Lothrop was also eventually responsible for the preservation of other homes in Concord, including Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott lived while writing Little Women, and Grapevine Cottage, where the Concord grape was first cultivated. After her husband's death in 1892, Harriett Lothrop ran his publishing company for two years before selling it (it eventually became Lothrop, Lee and Shepard). With more time to devote to writing, Harriett Lothrop penned nine of the Pepper books between 1897 and 1916. Overall, she wrote some thirty other books, including A Little Maid of Concord Town and A Little Maid of Boston, set in Revolutionary times; these are evidence of her desire to impart the ideals of patriotism and liberty to children. Also to that end, in 1895 she founded a national society, Children of the American Revolution. She spent her last years in extended travels overseas, and it became her custom to winter in California, where she died, in San Francisco, on August 2, 1924. She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord. Thanks largely to the efforts of her daughter, Margaret Lothrop, the Wayside, known as the Home of Authors, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1963. Harriett's favorite rocking chair is still there.

Article taken from Women in History at About.com

Copyright © 2001. All rights reserved.

To read the stories of The Five Little Peppers online, just click the links below.

Etexts by Margaret Sidney:

#1 The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, 1881

#2 The Five Little Peppers Midway, 1890
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#3 Five Little Peppers Grown Up, 1892
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#6 The Adventures of Joel Pepper, 1900
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#7 The Five Little Peppers Abroad, 1902
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#9 The Five Little Peppers and Their Friends, 1904
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