The Hundred Dresses

Much like her characters in The Hundred Dresses, Estes attended a small-town school in Connecticut. Estes remembers a young Polish girl at her school, in West Haven, Connecticut, being mocked for having only one plain dress, which she wore to school everyday. She felt uncomfortable with the bullying at the time, but did not speak up to defend her classmate. This inaction in the face of cruelty haunted Estes for years; she felt immense guilt for not coming to the girl’s aid. According to Estes’s daughter, “As an adult, once she had become a writer, she figured that the only thing she could do was to write her story” (“Eleanor Assuages Her Childhood Guilt.” New English Historical Society).

Poland to the United States between 1870 and 1914, attracted by comparatively high wages and job opportunities. Many Polish people hoped to one day own land in America. In Poland at the time, which was occupied by Russia, the Prussian Empire, and Austria, many lacked basic resources of work, food, and permanent housing. This made America, perceived by many as a land of opportunity, a tempting prospect (Jones, Syd. “Polish Americans”). Given that Estes’s novel is set during the time of her own elementary-aged schooling in the early 20th century, Wanda’s family was presumably part of this wave of Polish immigration.