Gale Eaton was born in Bangor, Maine, where a great public library headed by Alice Jordan's cousin Felix Ranlett helped prepare her for Smith College. She went to work in the children's room of the Boston Public Library, where Alice Jordan's last generation of trainees maintained noble standards. She completed her MLS at the University of Rhode Island while working full time at the BPL; spent seven years as Supervisor of Children's Services at the Berkshire Athenaeum; and returned to school, earning her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill. In 1988 she began teaching children's literature, library services to youth, and research methods at URI's Graduate School of Library and Information. She was appointed its director in 2006. Her first book for Scarecrow was Well-Dressed Role Models: The Portrayal of Women in Biographies for Children (2006); her previous work on Alice Jordan has been published in Libraries & the Cultural Record (2011), Children & Libraries (2010), and Marilyn Miller's Pioneers and Leaders in Library Services to Youth (2003), and presented at conferences of the Children's Literature Association (2011), Maine Library Association (2011), and Association for Library and Information Science Education (2009). Eaton retired in 2012. She now writes and volunteers for the RI Coalition of Library Advocates.