Myra Kelly

Born in Dublin in 1875, she moved to New York as a child and grew up in the city her writing would later bring to life. She studied at Horace Mann and Teachers College, Columbia University, graduating in 1899.

She taught in New York public schools, including on the Lower East Side, and used that experience in books such as Little Citizens and Wards of Liberty. Her fiction is especially remembered for its affectionate, sharp-eyed view of children from immigrant families and the everyday drama of urban school life.

She married Allan MacNaughton in 1905 and died in Torquay, England, in 1910. Though her life was short, her stories remain a vivid window into turn-of-the-century New York.