Rawlings was born on August 8, 1896, in Washington, DC. Her mother was a social climber and planned to use her daughter to elevate her societal position, which Rawlings resisted. Rawlings was closer to her father, a farmer who taught her about growing crops and animal husbandry, and his influence appears throughout her writing. Ann McCutchan writes in her biography of Rawlings:

Arthur Sr. surprised Ida, and probably himself, with a deep fondness for Marjorie. He adored her. When he left the house before she awoke, he might leave her a message or a verse: I love my little daughter / from her head clear to her toes / I even love the little bit / of turkey’s egg nose (McCutchan, Ann. The Life She Wished to Live: A Biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Author of The Yearling. W. W. Norton & Company, 2021, p. 17).

Perhaps Rawlings got her talent for writing verses from her father. As early as age six, she showed an interest in writing. At age 16, she won second place in a contest for McCall’s magazine. That same year, 1912, she published her first poems, which showed her talent for writing dialects.

After Rawlings’s father’s death in her senior year of high school, the family moved to Wisconsin, where Rawlings’s attended the University of Wisconsin.