Her parents lived on a farm at a distance from good schools, and could not afford to give their large family of nine children a very good education. But Alice and her sister Phoebe were fond of reading and studied all they could. When Alice was seventeen and Phoebe thirteen years old they because to write verses, which were printed in newspapers. And in 1849 they published a book called Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary. This made them well-known, and the next year they moved to New York City, where they gave themselves up to writing, and won much fame.
Alice wrote, besides poetry, several stories in prose, among which were The Clovernook Children and Snow Berries, a Book for Young Folks.
She died in New York at age 51.