(mellow music) - [Narrator 1] She grew up in Appleton and went on to become among the country's most popular and richest authors of the early 20th century.

She won the Pulitzer Prize.

Her novels were adapted into films starring Hollywood's biggest names.

She socialized with presidents and the literary elites, and the US Postal Service released a stamp in her honor.

And yet somehow, so many remain unfamiliar with her name.

This is the story of Edna Ferber.

(energetic music) (music continues) Edna Ferber was born on August 15th, 1885 in Kalamazoo, Michigan to Jacob and Julia Ferber.

Her older sister, Fannie, was born three years earlier.

- Her father came to this country from Hungary.

He was Jewish.

He came on a boat, of course, by himself, and his family then came later.

They settled in Chicago.

He was a farmer when they first got here, but then he had moved into dry goods at some point.

Her mother was described as a well-to-do Jew in Germany.

- [Narrator 1] The Ferbers moved throughout the Midwest during Edna's childhood, from Kalamazoo back to Chicago to try to cash in on the 1893 World's Fair.

From there, the family settled in Ottumwa, Iowa, where they would stay for seven years.

- It was a horrible experience, not just for the family, but for Edna.

She talks about it being a very antisemitic town, spat on almost daily, and they were basically pushed out of town.

So 1897, they moved to Appleton, Wisconsin.

40 families, Jewish families that lived there.

The mayor is even Jewish.

She is very fond of Appleton.

- [Narrator 1] In her 1938 autobiography, "A Peculiar Treasure", Ferber wrote lovingly about Appleton and its people.

- [Narrator 2] "If Ottumwa had seemed like some foreign provincial town in its narrowness and bigotry, Appleton represented the American small town at its best.

A sense of wellbeing pervaded it.

It was curiously modern and free in the best sense of the words.

Cliques, malice, gossip, snobbishness, all the insular meannesses were strangely lacking in this thriving community."

- [Narrator 1] Edna excelled in Appleton schools.

She was a voracious reader and involved in a variety of activities at Ryan High School.

- At school, she is in the drama club, debate club, she runs the newspaper, she goes to dances, the theater.

Her family, although they don't have a whole lot of money, spends a lot of money on the theater and getting the kids there to see plays and musicals.

- [Narrator 1] Edna graduated from high school in 1904.

She had dreamed of a career on the stage, and had hoped to attend Northwestern University's School of Elocution, but she went to work instead at 17 as a reporter at the local newspaper.

- She marches over to "The Appleton Crescent" and walks out with a job.

She is the first woman ever to have a job at the newspaper.

She has a beat.

She does the jail, the courthouse, the police beat.

They called her Boots because she makes a lot of noise with her boots on those hardwood floors of the courthouse.

- [Narrator 1] Edna is fired less than two years on the job.

The publisher didn't appreciate a vacation request, nor her aggressive style.

She moved to Milwaukee and became a reporter for "The Milwaukee Journal".

- She describes it as a very demanding job, working 12 hour days.

She lived in a boarding house.

She called it the best time of her life for working.

- [Narrator 1] After nearly four years at "The Milwaukee Journal", Edna collapsed from exhaustion while visiting home.

She stayed in Appleton to recover and never returned to journalism.

As the 22-year-old recuperated, she began to write her first book.

- [Christine] She buys a typewriter for $17 and starts a lifelong passion of writing.

She starts with a novel that she calls "Dawn O'Hara", which is about a woman who is a newspaper writer in "The Milwaukee Journal".

She also begins to write short stories.

- [Narrator 1] Her novels generally featured strong female protagonists, and she did not shy away from race or class.

She came to national attention for her "Emma McChesney" magazine series.

Among her fans was President Teddy Roosevelt.

She moved to New York in 1912, where she found great fame for her novels and short stories.

- She was a feminist when people weren't writing about that.

This was at a period of time where women were just starting to enter the workforce.

And so she, and again, this is her early works, that it's women in business.

- [Narrator 1] In her breakthrough novel, "So Big", Edna follows the life of a widowed farmer outside Chicago who, through force of will, transforms her failing fields into a thriving business.

It received the highest honor in literature.

- She did win the Pulitzer Prize for that.

And one of the neat things about her winning the Pulitzer is she was given $1,000 for that in 1925, and she gives the money, all of it, to a charity that gives money to elderly writers and artists for their care.

- [Narrator 1] Edna followed up the success of "So Big" with the work she's most famous for, "Showboat", which was turned into a blockbuster musical.

- It was about a traveling showboat that went on the Mississippi.

"Showboat" tells the story through this family who runs the boat with the characters as the actors and the cooks and everybody that is on the boat supporting the floating theater.

Very successful musical that is played over and over, and probably is being played this week at a high school in Topeka, Kansas.

It has great music, it has great theater to it.

It just doesn't look a lot like what she wrote.

- [Narrator 1] Over the years, her work, which included co-written plays with George S. Kaufman, offered sweeping sagas throughout different regions of the country, from the Mississippi River delta to the tundra, and they were all massively successful.

- [Christine] So all of them were Book of the Month Club, or on New York Times lists for years and years and years.

All of her books were turned into movies.

- [Narrator 1] Ferber was among the first authors to assign film rights to her books on short term contracts, so that rights needed to be renegotiated regularly.

Her 1952 novel "Giant" starred Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and the last appearance of James Dean.

It was the culmination of an incredible body of work.

- [Christine] She had 13 full length novels.

She had 12 volumes of short stories.

She had nine plays.

She always collaborated with someone for her plays.

Her plays have won Tony's.

- [Narrator 1] Edna Ferber died in New York surrounded by family on April 16th, 1968 after a long bout with stomach cancer.

She never married or had children.

She left her wealth and her estate to her sister and nieces.

- [Christine] Her legacy, of course, is her books and her short stories and her plays.

- [Narrator 1] Edna Ferber's legacy endures as a testament to the power of her storytelling, which gave voice to American lives often overlooked.

That an elementary school in her hometown of Appleton now bears her name is a fitting tribute, honoring not just a literary giant, but a local daughter whose work continues to inspire.

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