Canfield, James Hulme (1847-1909). Educator, chancellor of the University of Nebraska. James Canfield was born in Ohio but grew up in Vermont and New York City. After graduating from Williams College in 1868, he went west, where he married Flavia Camp in 1873. Their children were James A. Canfield and Dorothy Canfield (Fisher). He was appointed professor of history at the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1877; from there he was called to be chancellor of the University of Nebraska in 1891. Cather’s class made him an honorary member of their class, as they had all entered the university that year. A dynamic man, he was popular with the students and with people throughout Nebraska, a tireless campaigner for the value of the rapidly growing university to the state. Ohio State University called him to its presidency in 1895; from there he went to Columbia University as head librarian from 1899 until his death in 1909.

Fisher, Dorothy Canfield (1879-1958). American novelist; educational and social reformer. Dorothy Canfield and Willa Cather became friends in 1891 at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where Canfield's father, James Canfield, had come to serve as Chancellor. The family moved to Columbus, OH, in 1895 when James Canfield assumed the presidency of Ohio State University, from which Dorothy graduated in 1899. She then followed her father to New York City, where he became Librarian of Columbia University, and she pursued graduate study in Romance Languages at the University of Paris and Columbia, from which she earned a PhD in 1904. On Cather’s first trip to Europe, she spent time in France and England with Canfield, including an awkward visit to the home of poet A.E. Housman. Cather derived the central character of “The Profile” (1907) from Canfield’s friend Evelyn Osborne, whom Cather had met in Europe. Cather and Canfield became estranged for more than a decade because Canfield objected to the story’s planned inclusion in The Troll Garden (1905). Canfield married John Redwood Fisher in 1907, and their primary residence was Arlington, VT. Canfield Fisher had spent 1916-1918 in France engaging in war relief work, and Cather’s consultation with her about the accuracy of her depiction of wartime France in One of Ours (1922) led them to reconcile. In 1925 Canfield Fisher became a founding member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee. She published her novels (most of them very popular) under the name Dorothy Canfield but her various nonfiction works as Dorothy Canfield Fisher.