Editing Edna Ferber (section)

==Life and career==


===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 was born there three years earlier.<ref name=ferber-auto>{{cite book |last1=Ferber |first1=Edna |title=A Peculiar Treasure |date=1939 |publisher=Doubleday, Doran and Co. |location=New York |page=18}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kinQAwAAQBAJ&q=%22Her+father%2C+Jacob+Charles+Ferber%2C+was+a+Hungarian+Jew%2C+and+her+mother%2C%22&pg=PA191|title=Looking Backward: True Stories from Chicago's Jewish Past|isbn=9780897338271|last1=Roth|first1=Walter|date=August 2005|publisher=Chicago Review Press }}</ref>{{sfn|Gilbert|2000|p=1}}
Ferber's father was not adept at business,{{sfn|Ferber|1939|p=18}} 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.{{sfn|Ferber|1939|p=41}}<ref name=":1">{{cite web|url=https://www.nndb.com/people/391/000073172/|title=Edna Ferber|website=www.nndb.com|access-date=September 27, 2019}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{cite web |last=Burstein |first=Janet |date=December 31, 1999 |title=Edna Ferber {{!}} Jewish Women's Archive |url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/ferber-edna |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230120193521/https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/ferber-edna |archive-date=January 20, 2023 |access-date=February 15, 2019 |website=jwa.org}}</ref> 
According to Ferber, her years in Ottumwa "must be held accountable for anything in me that is hostile toward the world".{{sfn|Ferber|1939|p=31}}
During this time, Ferber's father began to lose his eyesight, necessitating costly and ultimately unsuccessful treatments.{{sfn|Ferber|1939|p=51}} 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 ''[[The Post-Crescent|Appleton Daily Crescent]]'' and subsequently moved to the ''[[Milwaukee Journal]].''{{sfn|Gilbert|2000|p=428}}<ref name=":0" /> In early 1909, Ferber suffered a bout of anemia and returned to Appleton to recuperate.  She never resumed her career as a reporter, although she subsequently covered the [[1920 Republican National Convention]] and [[1920 Democratic National Convention]] for the [[United Press Association]].{{sfn|Gilbert|2000|p=423}}<ref>{{cite web|url=https://americanliterature.com/author/edna-ferber|title=Edna Ferber|website=americanliterature.com|access-date=March 9, 2020}}</ref>

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:{{sfn|Ferber|1939|p=171-172}}
{{blockquote|text=In that day, and for a girl in her early twenties, they were rather hard tough stories... The book got good reviews. I was startled and grimly pleased when some of the reviewers said that obviously these stories had been written by a man who had taken a feminine nom de plume as a hoax.  I have always thought that a writing style should be impossible of sex determination; I don't think the reader should be able to say whether a book has been written by a man or a woman.
}}

In 1925, she won the [[Pulitzer Prize]] for her book ''[[So Big (novel)|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 (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.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Smyth |first=J. E. |title=Edna Ferber's Hollywood: American fictions of gender, race, and history |date=2010 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=9780292719842 |edition=1st |location=Austin |pages=66; 191–228 |oclc=318870278}}</ref>  Following the award, the novel was made into a [[silent film]] starring [[Colleen Moore]] that [[So Big (1924 film)|same year]]. A remake followed in [[So Big (1932 film)|1932]], starring [[Barbara Stanwyck]] and [[George Brent]], with [[Bette Davis]] in a supporting role. A [[So Big (1953 film)|1953 version]] of ''So Big'' starring [[Jane Wyman]] is the most popular version to modern audiences.<ref name=":2" />

Riding the popularity of ''So Big'', Ferber's next novel, ''[[Show Boat (novel)|Show Boat]]'' in 1926, was just as successful. Shortly after its release, composer [[Jerome Kern]] proposed turning it into a [[Show Boat|musical]]. Ferber was shocked, thinking it would be transformed into a typical light entertainment of the 1920s. It was not until Kern explained that he and [[Oscar Hammerstein II]] wanted to create a different type of [[Musical theater|musical]] that Ferber granted him the rights and it premiered on [[Broadway theater|Broadway]] in 1927, and it has been [[Revival (theatre)|revived]] eight times.

Her 1952 novel ''Giant'' became the basis of the [[Giant (1956 film)|1956 movie]], starring [[Elizabeth Taylor]], [[James Dean]] and [[Rock Hudson]].<ref name=":2" />
[[File:Edna Feber Plaque.jpg|thumb|right|Plaque located in Manhattan, at 65th Street & Central Park West, in the building in which Edna Ferber lived for six years]]

Ferber was reportedly the first author to assign film rights to her books on short-term contracts so that the rights needed to be renegotiated regularly.<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=[[Minneapolis Tribune]]|page=1D|last=Maltin|first=Leonard|author-link=Leonard Maltin|date=June 23, 1974|title=Lost, strayed or ? – where are those classic films of today?}}</ref>

=== Death ===
Ferber died at her home in New York City, of [[stomach cancer]],<ref>{{cite book|author=R. Baird Shuman|title=Great American Writers: Twentieth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YBIvc_e_YwwC&pg=PA503|year=2002|publisher=Marshall Cavendish|isbn=978-0-7614-7240-7|page=503}}</ref> at the age of 82. She left her estate to her sister and nieces.<ref name="brody">{{cite book |last1=Brody |first1=Seymour |title=Jewish Heroes & Heroines of America: 150 True Stories of American Jewish Heroism |date=1996 |publisher=Lifetime Books Inc. |location=Hollywood, FL |isbn=0-8119-0823-2 |pages=109–110|url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/edna-ferber|access-date=October 15, 2022}}</ref>