Field was a descendant of David Dudley Field.She grew up in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.As a child, she contributed to the St. Nicholas Magazine. She was educated at Radcliffe College. Her book Prayer for a Child was a recipient of the Caldecott Medal for its illustrations by Elizabeth Orton Jones.According to Ruth Hill Vigeurs in her introduction to Rachel Field's children's book Calico Bush, published in 1931, Field was

fifteen when she first visited Maine and fell under the spell of its 'island-scattered coast'.Calico Bush still stands out as a near-perfect re-creation of people and place in a story of courage, understated and beautiful.

Field was also a successful author of adult fiction, writing the bestsellers Time Out of Mind (1935), All This and Heaven Too (1938), and And Now Tomorrow (1942).She is also famous for her poem-turned-song "Something Told the Wild Geese". Field also wrote the English lyrics for the version of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria used in the Disney film Fantasia . Field married Arthur S. Pederson in 1935, with whom she collaborated in 1937 on To See Ourselves.She also wrote a story about the nativity of Jesus Christ titled "All Through the Night".

She moved to Hollywood, where she lived with her husband and two children.She died at the Good Samaritan Hospital on March 15, 1942, of pneumonia following an operation.