Betty Smith was a white novelist and playwright born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, in 1896, a grandchild of German immigrants. Although she never received a high school diploma or earned a college degree, Smith took classes at the University of Michigan and was admitted to a playwriting program at the Yale Drama School. She later took a job with the Federal Theater Project, which took her to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in the 1930s, where she worked with Frederick Koch of the Carolina PlayMakers at the University of North Carolina.
During this time, Smith wrote a number of plays as well as acted in them with the PlayMakers, and remained in Chapel Hill after the Federal Theater Project concluded. It was also during this time that she began writing her most famous work, based on her childhood memories – the novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which was published in 1943. The novel became a national bestseller and brought Smith financial success. The book was later made into an Oscar-winning film, a successful musical, a radio serial, and a television show. Smith followed A Tree Grows in Brooklyn with three more novels, published between 1948 and 1963.
Although she passed away in Connecticut, Smith was buried in Chapel Hill, in 1972.