Emma Serl was born in Clinton, Wisconsin in 1876. There is scarcely any information about her early life, though it can be assumed by her later travels that her family was at least well to do. We do know that she never married, being referred to as Miss Emma Serl until the day of her death. She was considered a prodigy of sorts, as reflected by her first public mention, a chess match between Emma Serl and Dr. Emanuel Lasker, who in 1902 was the world chess champion. She received a draw from him. It tells much about the world that she inhabited that after the match, Dr. Lasker was asked if he let her win, which he politely denied.

Miss Serl received a thorough college education, receiving both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in English from the University of Denver. She then eventually settled in Kansas City, Missouri where she, at first, taught elementary school. There, as she recounted to interviewers later in life, she observed that children did not retain lessons relating to practical matters if they were delivered them as admonitions. She came to the conclusion that direct teaching of practical matters, such as etiquette or health, would be less productive, so she turned to writing. She discovered that children responded better to the same lessons if presented in fantastic format. She describes it, quoted in the Kansas City Star in 1928, "My first attempt at writing for children was "In Fable-land", an attempt to put Aesop’s fables into a form the modern child could enjoy without marring the beauty of the prose." Her goal was to make the virtue and good behavior interesting to the pupils.

Miss Serl was a prolific writer, with 19 books appearing in her lifetime. This total does not include her frequent contributions to the Kansas City Star and eastern magazines. After working for a time in the Kansas City school system, she accepted a position in the English Department of the Teachers College of Kansas City, of which she eventually became the head.

She went on to produce many titles focussed on language, health, and civic education including Primary Language Lessons, In the Animal World, Johnny & Jenny Rabbit, Every Day Doings at Home, Intermediate Language Lessons, Work-a-day Doings on the Farm, The Story of Kansas City, Every Day Doings in Healthville, In Rabbitville, and What They Say in Rabbitville, among others. In 1928, in the midst of her productivity, there had already been over one million published copies of her work, distributed in most of the United States.

According to interviewers, she viewed her writing as a recreational activity, something that happened in addition to her teaching. During her time as head of the English department, she would teach class six days a week and then write at night. Her writing only took place during the school semesters, as she was fond of travelling throughout the world during the summer recesses. She recalled visiting over 34 countries, including three trips around he world, in her lifetime and was widely regarded as a world traveler by the press of her time. During these summer trips, she studied at Cambridge and Oxford in England, though she never received a degree from these places.

by Dennis J. Vetrovec, Library Associate, Rare Books & Special Collections, Cunningham Memorial Library, Information Services, Indiana State University

Sources:

Who's Who Among English and European Authors; The Kansas City Star, October 22, 1911; The Kansas City Journal, December 12, 1923? (clipping); The Kansas City Star, March 7, 1924; The Kansas City Star, March 11, 1923;. The Kansas City Star, December 16, 1928; The Kansas City Times, March 7, 1955; The Kansas City Times, Monday, March 7, 1966; The Kansas City Times, Friday, April 23, 1971.