Pearl Buck was a mother, wife, writer, humanitarian, and civil rights activist who became the first American woman to receive the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes for literature. A visionary, she worked to cross political and cultural barriers to further understanding among all peoples of the world. Her perspective was shaped by a life lived equally in China and America and by extensive world travels. She established Welcome House, the first adoption agency specializing in multi-racial adoptions, and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to aid thousands of children fathered by American servicemen overseas. In 1950 she purchased property in Winhall, VT, and in 1969 moved to Danby, where she found an American town she loved, helped restore, and where she died in 1973.