Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) was an American writer. He was the author of several highly popular books for children, including Stuart Little (1945), Charlotte's Web (1952), and The Trumpet of the Swan (1970). In a 2012 survey of School Library Journal readers, Charlotte's Web came in first in their poll of the top one hundred children's novels. In addition, he was a writer and contributing editor to The New Yorker magazine, and also a co-author of the English language style guide The Elements of Style.
E.B. White was born in Mount Vernon, New York, the sixth and youngest child of Samuel Tilly White, the president of a piano firm, and Jessie Hart White, the daughter of Scottish-American painter William Hart. Elwyn's older brother Stanley Hart White, known as Stan, a professor of landscape architecture and the inventor of the vertical garden, taught E.B. White to read and to explore the natural world.
While attending Cornell University, White was a private in the Student Army Training Corps (SATC). In early 1918, the War Department created the SATC to hasten the training of soldiers for the war in Europe. Students continued to take college courses while training for the military. Unlike the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), SATC students were required to live and take all meals on campus, adhered to a strict military schedule of study and training, and required a pass to go off campus on weekends. The SATC program was disbanded in December 1918, and there is no evidence White served on active military duty or went overseas.

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