Centennial and Other Poems

I stumbled upon this original 1876 edition in the library mainly because she lived the last portion of her life in my hometown of Fort Madison. This book of poems commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the first official World's Fair to be held in the United States. In addition, several other commemorations of events and buildings in SE Iowa are included as well as poems dedicated to her daughter.

Rebecca Pollard (real name) was also widely known for her revolutionary reading system which was used in every state well into the 20th century. It was one of the first reading systems for children to link spelling and reading and directly led to the development of phonetics-based reading.