Eugene Field Sr. (September 2, 1850-November 4, 1895) was an American writer best known for his funny essays and children's poetry. He was dubbed the "poet of childhood. Field was born at 634 S. Broadway in St. Louis, Missouri, and his boyhood house is now open to the public as The Eugene Field House and St. Louis Toy Museum. After his mother died in 1856, he was reared in Amherst, Massachusetts, by an aunt, Mary Field French. Field's father, lawyer Roswell Martin Field, was well-known for representing Dred Scott, a slave who sued for his freedom. Field submitted a complaint in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case (often referred to as "the lawsuit that started the Civil War") on Scott's behalf in federal court in St. Louis, Missouri, from which it proceeded to the United States Supreme Court. Field received his education at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Eugene's father died when he was 19, and he dropped out of Williams after only eight months. He subsequently attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, but dropped out after a year. He then attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, where his brother Roswell was also enrolled.
