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Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a high-profile family. During her life, she wrote over 90 books, including children's, biographies, poetry, and others. A well-known children's poem for which she is noted is the literary nonsense verse Eletelephony.
Her father was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, an abolitionist and the founder of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind. Samuel Gridley Howe's famous pupil Laura Bridgman was Laura's namesake.
Julia Ward Howe, Laura's mother, was famous for writing the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
In 1871, Laura married Henry Richards. He would accept a management position in 1876 at his family's paper mill at Gardiner, Maine, where the couple moved with their three children.
In 1917, Laura won a Pulitzer Prize for Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, a biography, which she co-authored with her sister, Maud Howe Elliott. Her children's book Tirra Lirra won the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1959.
A pre-kindergarten to second grade Elementary School in Gardiner, Maine honors her name.
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