American short-story writer and novelist who was the highest paid female writer of her day. She specialized in human interest stories, becoming a social critic and reformer in her later years. In 1931, she claimed, “I am passionately anxious to awake in people in general a sensitiveness to small people.”
She grew up lonely and isolated. In 1901, she was sent to a private high school which she hated and subsequently transferred to a public school. She graduated in 1909 from Washington University in St. Louis and fell in love with a young Russian Jewish pianist, Jacques Danielson. They moved to New York City, where she took small jobs and wrote when she wasn’t working.
In 1910 she sold human interest sketches to the New York Times and to Smith’s magazine. She sold her story, “Power and Post” for $300 to Saturday Evening Post in 1911 and by 1914, she had published twenty of her stories. She had also become an inspiration for young writers and for women. In May 1920, it was discovered that she and Danielson had been married since May 6, 1914, though they had maintained separate names, friends and apartments. Most of her stories dealt with women in nontraditional roles or unconventional situations. Her novel “Back Street (1931), was filmed three times and “Imitation of Life (1933) was twice made into a film. In all, she wrote 18 novels, an autobiography, and more than 400 short stories, plays, movie scripts and articles. She once had her own radio and TV show. She campaigned for Franklin D. Roosevelt and was a delegate to the world Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva in 1952.
She died on February 23, 1968
Link to Wikipedia biography