01/08/2025
American author Betty Smith is best remembered for her poignant coming-of-age story, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The novel follows the travails of a family navigating adversity in the crowded borough of Brooklyn, New York, before World War I. Have you read this American classic?
Long before A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was published in 1943, Smith spent more than a decade in Michigan, where she studied at the University of Michigan and began her writing career. Born Elizabeth Wehner in Brooklyn in 1896, Smith had a difficult childhood wrought with constant financial hardship, and left school after the 8th grade to supplement the family income. She found solace at the local library, where she joined the debate team and met her future husband, George H. E. Smith. The couple married in 1919 and moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where George studied law at U of M. Elizabeth obtained “special student” status at the university, which allowed her to audit three classes a semester. It was in these courses that she found her love of writing and began writing essays and household articles for local publications. She discovered a passion for playwriting—which she studied under esteemed Professor Kenneth Thorpe Rowe— and gained a reputation as one of the most acclaimed student playwrights at the university. It was during her playwright years that she first developed the character Francie Nolan, who became the protagonist of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Learn more about the life and works of Betty Smith in “A Tree Grows in Ann Arbor: Betty Smith in Michigan” by Kendall Wingrove in Michigan History magazine at https://hsmichigan.org/read/michigan-history
