Betty Smith
Betty Smith was born in 1896 in Brooklyn, New York, to German immigrants.
Her impoverished upbringing in Williamsburg inspired her first novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Smith pursued higher education at the University of Michigan while raising two daughters.
She later divorced and moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where she remarried in 1943, the same year her famous novel was published.
Smith was a prolific writer and dramatist, receiving numerous awards and fellowships throughout her career.
She wrote three other novels and collaborated on a musical adaptation of her most famous work.
Smith died in 1972, leaving behind a lasting literary legacy.
