{{Short description|American writer and illustrator (1897–1997)}} {{For|the former British Women's Chess Champion|Edith Charlotte Price}} {{Infobox artist | name = Edith Ballinger Price | image = Photo of Edith Ballinger Price.jpg | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1897|4|26|mf=y}} | birth_place = New Brunswick, New Jersey | death_date = {{death date and age|1997|9|29|1897|4|26|mf=y}} | death_place = Virginia Beach, Virginia | education = School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts<br>Art Students League of New York | training = | movement = | works = | patrons = | awards = | spouse = | partner = | children = Mary Burchey Perry (adopted) | known_for = Writing and illustrating children's books, helping to found the Brownies }}

'''Edith Ballinger Price''' (1897–1997) was a prolific writer and illustrator of children's books, best known for the imaginative stories and illustrations she created for 37 different books and stories.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Price, Edith Ballinger 1897-1997|url=https://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-no2001029685/|website=OCLC WorldCat Identities}}</ref> The granddaughter of landscape painter William Trost Richards, who first inspired her to draw, Price trained at Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts, the New York Art Students League and the National Academy of Design.<ref name=":0" /> Oft-published in general-interest magazines like ''Colliers'' and those aimed at children, like ''St. Nicholas Magazine'', she was also notable as one of the chief founders of the Brownies, the junior version of the Girl Scouts.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite web|title=Girl Scouts of the USA : Individual : Edith Ballinger Price [019051]|url=https://archives.girlscouts.org/Detail/entities/11884|access-date=2022-02-17|website=archives.girlscouts.org}}</ref>

== Career == Price's back list includes her first novel ''Blue Magic'' (1919), ''the Bottle Man'' (1920), ''Silver Shoal Light'', ''The Happy Venture'' (1920), and ''My Lady Lee'' (1925).<ref name=":0">{{cite web|date=23 April 2004|title=Twentieth Century American Children's Literature: Edith Ballinger Price|url=http://library.uoregon.edu/ec/exhibits/childrenslit/ebprice.html|publisher=University of Oregon Library|accessdate=2013-01-12}}</ref><ref name="ArchivesWest">{{cite web|title=Edith Ballinger Price papers, 1902-1977|url=http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv52677|website=Archives West|accessdate=17 July 2017}}</ref> She also collaborated with other authors, including Margaret C. Getchell for the 1916 book ''Cloudbird'', the dream-like adventures of a small girl named Dorothy Ann and the animals she meets.<ref name=":1" /> For the book, Price's design and illustration appeared in conventional spots at the beginning and end of chapters, as well as in more unexpected places where, depending on the content, small silhouettes of bears, roosters, herons, turtles and other creatures jumped into small spaces within the text itself.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=The cloud bird|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/16024230/|access-date=2022-02-17|website=Library of Congress}}</ref>

Two years later, Price published ''Blue Magic'', first in serialized form for ''St. Nicholas Magazine'' in 1918, then the following year for The Century Company.<ref name=":0" /> She liked illustrating but was seldom given the opportunity to work on the drawings related to her own works.<ref name="Edith Ballinger Price">{{Cite web |date=2020-12-28 |title=Edith Ballinger Price |url=https://expo.uoregon.edu/spotlight/twentieth-century-american-children-literature/feature/edith-ballinger-price |access-date=2025-01-28 |website=Twentieth-Century American Children's Literature - Digital Exhibits |language=en}}</ref> "She taught artistic autonomy at the school of the Art Association of Newport, of which she was a council member for twenty-eight years."<ref name="Edith Ballinger Price"/> In 1962 Price moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where she worked at A.R.E. Press, a publisher of the works of psychic Edgar Cayce."<ref name="Edith Ballinger Price"/>

== Other pursuits == A devotee of the Girl Scouts, she helped found the Brownie Scouts program, which was designed for children not yet old enough to join the Girl Scouts.<ref name="ArchivesWest" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|title=EDITH B. PRICE|url=https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1997/vp971001/10010383.htm|access-date=2022-02-17|website=scholar.lib.vt.edu}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last1=Degenhardt|first1=Mary|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T4xBhoxLDY0C|title=Girl Scout Collectors' Guide: A History of Uniforms, Insignia, Publications, and Memorabilia|last2=Kirsch|first2=Judith|date=2005|publisher=Texas Tech University Press|isbn=978-0-89672-546-1|language=en}}</ref> She authored their first handbook, as well as several Girl Scout-related magazines, including ''the American Girl'', ''Girl's Guide Gazette'' and ''Girls Today'', and she served as the organization's national chair from 1925 to 1932.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":4" />

Price knew a large number of traditional folk songs, which she was recorded singing by the folklorist Helen Hartness Flanders in 1945. Songs in her repertoire included some of the famous Child Ballads such as "The Two Sisters",<ref>{{Cite web|title=Two Sisters (Roud Folksong Index S270576)|url=https://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S270576|access-date=2020-11-19|website=The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library|language=en-gb}}</ref> "Edward",<ref>{{Cite web|title=Edward (Roud Folksong Index S233994)|url=https://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S233994|access-date=2020-11-19|website=The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library|language=en-gb}}</ref> "The Cruel Brother",<ref>{{Cite web|title=Three Ladies Played At Ball (Roud Folksong Index S253940)|url=https://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S253940|access-date=2020-11-19|website=The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library|language=en-gb}}</ref> "Gypsy Davey"<ref>{{Cite web|title=Gypsum Davey (Roud Folksong Index S267944)|url=https://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S267944|access-date=2020-11-19|website=The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library|language=en-gb}}</ref> and "Jamie Douglas",<ref>{{Cite web|title=Waily Waily (Roud Folksong Index S273569)|url=https://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S273569|access-date=2020-11-19|website=The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library|language=en-gb}}</ref> all of which can be heard online via the Helen Hartness Flanders Collection.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection {{!}} Middlebury Libraries|url=https://www.middlebury.edu/library/special-collections/collections/flanders|access-date=2022-02-17|website=www.middlebury.edu|language=en}}</ref>

== Gallery == <small>(Selection was limited by availability.)</small><gallery widths="180" heights="180" perrow="3" caption="Illustrations, Books and a Book Plate"> File:The Happy Venture, Pg 201.jpg|Illustration for ''The Happy Venture'' File:Illus 01--SisterEloise.jpg|Illustration for the short story "Sister Eloise" File:Illus 03--SisterEloise.jpg|Illustration for the short story "Sister Eloise" File:UsAndTheBottleMan Pg 107.jpg|Illustration from ''Us and the Bottleman'' File:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu|''Fortune of the Indies'' File:Ballinger Price--Us and the Bottle Man.djvu|''Us and the Bottleman'' File:The happy venture (IA happyventure00pric).pdf|''The Happy Venture'' File:American Foundation for the Blind bookplate.jpg|A book plate in honor of both the American Foundation for the Blind and Price's daughter File:Bear and swan illustrations by Edith Ballinger Price for Margaret C. Getchell. (1916) The Cloud Bird, Worcester, MA — The Davis Press Inc, p. 70.pdf|A bear and a swan peer in from the margin of the page in ''Cloudbird,'' which Price illustrated </gallery>

== References == {{reflist}}

==External links== {{portal|Children's literature}} *{{commons category-inline}} *{{wikisource author-inline}} * Works by or about Edith B. Price in libraries (WorldCat catalog) *{{Gutenberg author |id=3889| name=Edith Ballinger Price}} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Edith Ballinger Price}} * ''[https://www.loc.gov/item/21015253/ The Happy Venture]'' at the Library of Congress * [http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv52677 Guide to the Edith Price papers at the University of Oregon] {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Price, Edith B.}} Category:20th-century American women artists Category:20th-century American illustrators Category:American women illustrators Category:20th-century American women writers Category:American children's writers Category:American women centenarians Category:1897 births Category:1997 deaths Category:American mystery writers Category:American historical fiction writers Category:American detective fiction writers Category:American writers of young adult literature Category:American women writers of young adult literature