Dorothy Kunhardt

Kunhardt wrote nearly 50 books, including one of the bestselling children's books in history, Pat the Bunny, which has sold over six million copies.^[2] She initially wrote it for her youngest child, Edith Kunhardt Davis.^[3] Other works include Twenty Days, an account of Lincoln's assassination and the twenty days that followed, which she wrote with her son, Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr.; Tiny Animal Stories; The Telephone Book; Lucky Mrs. Ticklefeather; Brave Mr. Buckingham; Junket is Nice (1933); Wise Old Aard-Vark (1936); and Now Open the Box.^{[citation needed]}

A daughter of historian Frederick Hill Meserve,^[4] she was born in New York City and graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1923.^[5][6] She married Philip B. Kunhardt Sr. (son of George E. Kunhardt), a New Yorker and a Harvard Crimson football letterwinner.^[7][8] Their home in Morristown, New Jersey housed a collection of items related to the American Civil War and Abraham Lincoln.^[9]

They had four children:

• Nancy Kunhardt Lodge (1927–1997),^[10] who was married to Harvard Business School professor emeritus George Cabot Lodge II^[11]
• Philip Bradish Kunhardt Jr. (1928–2006),^[12][13] former reporter and managing director of Life magazine^[14] and producer of documentaries such as PBS's The American President;^[15] married to the former Katharine Trowbridge and had 6 children,^[16] including documentary filmmaker Peter Kunhardt, whose son is Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr.
• Kenneth Bradish Kunhardt (1930–1995), stockbroker; married to the former Edith L. Woodruff of New York City, former schoolteacher,^[17][18] they had 4 children. Edith Woodruff was related to the Coolidge family of Boston through her mother.
• Edith Kunhardt Davis (1937–2020), children's author and illustrator^[19]