Early years Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in
Kalamazoo, Michigan, to a Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper, Jacob Charles Ferber, and his
Milwaukee, Wisconsin–born wife, Julia (Neumann) Ferber, who was of German Jewish descent. The Ferbers had moved to Kalamazoo from
Chicago, Illinois, in order to open a dry goods store, and her older sister Fannie had been born there three years earlier. Ferber's father was not adept at business, and the family moved often during Ferber's childhood. From Kalamazoo, they returned to Chicago for a year, and then moved to
Ottumwa, Iowa, where they resided from 1890 to 1897 (ages 5 to 12 for Ferber). In Ottumwa, Ferber and her family faced brutal
anti-Semitism, including adult males verbally abusing, mocking and spitting on her on days when she brought lunch to her father, often mocking her in a
Yiddish accent. According to Ferber, her years in Ottumwa "must be held accountable for anything in me that is hostile toward the world". During this time, Ferber's father began to lose his eyesight, necessitating costly and ultimately unsuccessful treatments. At the age of 12, Ferber and her family moved to
Appleton, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school and later briefly attended
Lawrence University.
Career After graduation, Ferber planned to study elocution, with vague thoughts of someday becoming an actress, but her family could not afford to send her to college. On the spur of the moment, she took a job as a
cub reporter at the
Appleton Daily Crescent and subsequently moved to the
Milwaukee Journal. While Ferber was recovering, she began writing and selling short stories to various magazines, and in 1911 she published her first novel, ''Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed
. In 1912, a collection of her short stories was published in a volume titled Buttered Side Down''. In her autobiography, Ferber wrote: In 1925, she won the
Pulitzer Prize for her book
So Big. Ferber initially believed her draft of what would become
So Big lacked a plot, glorified failure, and had a subtle theme that could easily be overlooked. When she sent the book to her usual publisher,
Doubleday, she was surprised to learn that he greatly enjoyed the novel. This was reflected by the several hundreds of thousands of copies of the novel sold to the public. Following the award, the novel was made into a
silent film starring
Colleen Moore that
same year. A remake followed in
1932, starring
Barbara Stanwyck and
George Brent, with
Bette Davis in a supporting role. A
1953 version of
So Big starring
Jane Wyman is the most popular version to modern audiences.
Death Ferber died at her home in New York City, of
stomach cancer, at the age of 82. She left her estate to her sister and nieces. == Personal life ==