1911-1972
Writer

Significance.

Ruth McKenney is one of the best examples of the ways in which 1930s writers combined radical politics, an appreciation of their audience's need for entertainment, and a desire to document the harsh realities of Depression life. Moving between writing scripts for radio, stage, and screen; light short stories in The New Yorker; essays for the Communist weekly New Masses; and journalism for the World-Telegram in New York, McKenney seems to embody a certain cultural ethos of the period.

Autobiography.

Ruth McKenney is best known today as the author of My Sister Eileen, the best-selling account of her family life during her childhood. This 1938 autobiography was a collection of McKenney's New Yorker pieces; a second collection appeared two years later under the title The McKenneys Carry On. Both volumes were critically acclaimed: My Sister Eileen went through more than a dozen printings and...