Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big (1924), Show Boat (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), Cimarron (1930; adapted into the 1931 film which won the Academy Award for Best Picture), Giant (1952; made into the 1956 film of the same name) and Ice Palace (1958), which also received a film adaptation in 1960.
Ferber was born August 15, 1885, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, to a Hungarian-born Jewish storekeeper, Jacob Charles Ferber, and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-born wife, Julia (Neumann) Ferber, who was of German Jewish descent. The Ferbers had moved to Kalamazoo from Chicago, Illinois in order to open a dry goods store, and her older sister Fannie was born there three years earlier.

Ferber's father was not adept at business, and the family moved often during Ferber's childhood.
From Kalamazoo, they returned to Chicago for a year, and then
moved to Ottumwa, Iowa where they resided from 1890 to 1897 (ages 5 to 12 for Ferber). In Ottumwa, Ferber and her family faced brutal anti-Semitism, including adult males verbally abusing, mocking and spitting on her on days when she brought lunch to her father, often mocking her in a Yiddish accent.


According to Ferber, her years in Ottumwa "must be held accountable for anything in me that is hostile toward the world.".
During this time, Ferber's father began to lose his eyesight, necessitating costly and ultimately unsuccessful treatments.
At the age of 12, Ferber and her family moved to Appleton, Wisconsin, where she graduated from high school and later briefly attended Lawrence University.
After graduation, Ferber planned to study elocution, with vague thoughts of someday becoming an actor, but her family could not afford to send her to college.
On the spur of the moment, she took a job as a cub reporter at the Appleton Daily Crescent and subsequently moved to the Milwaukee Journal. In early 1909 Ferber suffered a bout of anemia and returned to Appleton to recuperate. She never resumed her career as a reporter, although she subsequently covered the 1920 Republican National Convention and 1920 Democratic National Convention for the United Press Association.

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