Helen S. Woodruff

Helen Smith Woodruff (June 7, 1888 – 1924) was an American author, playwright, and philanthropist. She wrote books for young adults and children. She set most of the stories in her native South and donated the proceeds from some of her books, including one about a blind boy, to charities.[1]

Helen Smith Woodruff (c. 1915)

Life and career

Helen Smith was born on June 7, 1888, in Selma, Alabama, to parents Emma West Smith and Oscar Emmet Smith. She went to school in Anniston, Alabama, and attended a New York finishing school for two years. In 1903, she met Lewis B. Woodruff, and a year later they were married. After her marriage, she moved to New York City, where her husband was from.[2][1]

In 1918, she wrote the musical comedy play, Hooray for the Girls while living in Ash Grove, her summer home in Litchfield, Connecticut.[3]

Madelyn Sheppard, John Barnes Wells, Helen Smith Woodruff, Annelu Burns (c. 1915)

She co-wrote the 1922 musical, Just Because. According to Cait Miller at the Library of Congress, the play "may well have been the first full-length Broadway musical authored entirely by women".[4]

Woodruff died in 1924.[5]

References
  1. "Woodruff-Smith". The Birmingham News. June 18, 1904. p. 17. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
  2. "Helen Smith Woodruff". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  3. "Society Organizes Novel Enterprises for War Relief". New York Herald. 1 December 1918. p. 6-2. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  4. Miller, Cait (18 October 2019). "Songwriters, Suffragettes, and the Musical Stage". Library of Congress - In The Muse: Performing Arts Blog. ISSN 2691-6525. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  5. "Madelyn Sheppard, J.B. Wells, Mrs. L.B Woodruff, Annelu Burns". Library of Congress Catalog. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
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