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Anne Emery was born on September 1, 1907 in Fargo, North Dakota. She grew up in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois. She attended Northwestern University and received a B.A. in 1928, and a certificate from the University of Grenoble, France in 1929. In addition to her writing career, she was a teacher at Evanston Public Schools in Illinois from 1929-1939, and a faculty member of Northwestern University Writers Workshop from 1964-1965. She was also a member of the Authors Guild, Authors League of America, Midland Authors and Theta Sigma Phi. She married John Douglas Emery in 1933, and had five children. Emery died on July 4, 1987 in Menlo Park, California.
Her work is primarily about teen girls and the issues they confront during adolescence, such as peer pressure, friendships and dating, sex, drugs and finding one's identity. However, Emery was also interested in historical fiction, and her first published work, Bright Horizons, dramatizes the conflicts over ratification of the American Constitution. Her other historical fiction novels include Carey's Fortune, which is set during the presidential election of 1800, and American Friend, a novel about Herbert Hoover.
The Anne Emery Papers consist of correspondence, manuscripts, financial records, published material, research material, photographs, and several files about the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. Boxes 35, 36 and 37 contain note cards of research material. Major correspondents are: MacraeSmith Co., Leslie G. Phillips (agent), G. P. Putnam's Sons, Rand McNally Co., Vanguard Press, and Westminster Press.