How Did Betty Smith's Impact On American Culture

Betty Smith’s books have had a large impact on American culture. Although Smith never surpassed a high school education, her novels still became world renowned. According to the article, “Biography of Betty Smith, Author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” spawning from a rejected play, Smith’s book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn became a “social phenomena: it was widely publicized as one of the best novels of 1943, it was read by thousands, and it became the staple of religious and social club discussions.” By 1994 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn had sold over “six million copies worldwide” (Jones, 1994). People enjoyed the book because “Smith managed to give voice to the underclass, to give color and radiance to supposedly squalid environments” (Jones, 1994). A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was turned into a film when “Twentieth-Century Fox paid $50,000 for the movie rights” and it won three Academy awards (Glover, 1972). Later, the book would turn into a Broadway musical and run for over a year. It was also turned into a “radio serial, appeared later on TV as a ‘late show,’ and was the basis for a comic strip.” Joy in the Morning also received huge success and became a movie in 1965. Her books were translated into numerous foreign languages including

Many people raved about her works and one woman even said, “I could say Betty Smith taught me how to read, to hear a story, to care so much about words on the page that they began to form the shape of a living being who took up residence in my heart, and in doing so taught me how to write” (Laux,