Who was the first woman to win the Newbery Medal?

Rachel Field was the first woman to win the Newbery Medal, receiving it in 1930 for “Hitty, Her First Hundred Years.”

Field's novel, published in 1929, is narrated by Hitty, a small wooden doll made in the 1820s. Across the book's imagined century, Hitty passes through multiple owners and travels through different places, giving the story the shape of an adventure and a fictional memoir.

The year is an important source of confusion. “Hitty, Her First Hundred Years” was published in 1929, but the Newbery Medal was awarded in 1930 for the most distinguished American children's book published during the preceding calendar year. Field was famously informed of the victory by radio while traveling by airplane; librarians in another plane relayed the news.

Rachel Field also wrote adult novels, poetry and plays. Her 1944 picture book “Prayer for a Child,” completed after her death, won the inaugural Caldecott Medal.