Margaret Warner Morley (February 17, 1858, in Montrose, Iowa – December 12, 1923, in Washington, D.C.) was an American educator, biologist, and author of many children's books on nature and biology.
Biography
Morley grew up in Brooklyn. She studied at State University of New York at Oswego and Hunter College. She continued her biology education at the Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) in Chicago and at the Woods Hole marine laboratory in Massachusetts. She worked as a teacher and was considered an expert in agriculture and beekeeping. She was most well known for her work as an illustrator, photographer, and author of books on nature.
As early as 1890 she visited Tryon, North Carolina with the painter Amelia Watson where she resided in the cottage of playwright William Gillette. She finally acquired her own home in Tryon where she lived for many years.
In one of her many trips she went to Europe to the Val Gardena the valley of toy carvers where she was inspired to write the novel Donkey John of the toy valley.
A collection of Morley's work is held at the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut. The collection consists of travel logs and sketchbooks of rural North Carolina, and book manuscripts.
The North Carolina Museum of History owns a collection of original photographs that Morley donated to the museum in 1914.
Morley died on December 12, 1923.
Drawings
Drawings by Morley from the original Val Gardena toys from Donkey John of the Toy Valley:
Writings
Song of Life 1891
Physical culture 1893
