Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Julia Ward Howe and Samuel Gridley Howe, into a family of reformers and writers.
Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards was born on February 27, 1850, in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of Julia Ward Howe, the celebrated poet and author of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' and Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, a physician and reformer renowned for his work in education for the blind and abolitionist activism.
Growing up in this intellectually vibrant household exposed Laura to literature, social reform, and public engagement from an early age. Her mother's prominence as a writer and activist, and her father's pioneering humanitarian work, created an environment that valued both artistic expression and civic responsibility.
This upbringing would prove foundational to Laura's own career. She absorbed her mother's facility with language and rhythm, which later blossomed into her distinctive nonsense verse for children. The Howe household's emphasis on service and intellectual rigor also shaped her later biographical work, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of her mother.
Her birth into this family placed her at the center of nineteenth-century American reform culture, and she would go on to become one of the most prolific and beloved children's authors of her era, ultimately publishing over ninety books across a literary career spanning more than six decades.