Betty Smith

Michael Brooks (West Chester University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 15 Dec 1904
Died 17 Jan 1972
Activity 1935-1972

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Playwright / Dramatist

Resources

Betty Smith will always be best known for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn but she wrote many plays and three other novels.

She was born Elizabeth Lillian Wehner on December 15, 1896. Carol Siri Smith (whose on-line dissertation is an essential source of information about Smith) notes that she was reluctant to admit her true age and sometimes gave dates as late as 1904 and 1906. Like Francie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Elizabeth Wehner grew up in Williamsburg, experienced extreme poverty, endured the early death of a beloved but improvident father, and dropped out of school to work in an artificial flower making factory and a Manhattan clipping bureau.

Although Francie never graduates from high school, t…

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1065 words

Citation: Brooks, Michael. "Betty Smith". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 November 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4110, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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