Michael Gold (a pseudonym for Irwin Granich) is best known for his autobiographical novel, Jews Without Money (1930), a sympathetic treatment of tenement life at the beginning of the twentieth century on the Lower East Side of New York City. Hailed as the first important work of American proletarian literature, Gold's book about growing up in poverty continues to stir the imagination of generations long removed from the immigrant neighborhoods of the Lower East Side. Although he wrote many short stories and poems, several plays, and hundreds of essays, his fame rests on this single book.

Gold was born Itzok Granich on 12 April 1893 on Chrystie Street in New York City, the son of poverty-stricken Jewish immigrant parents from Bessarabia. His father was a peddler and suspender maker. His family's poverty was so great that he had to quit school at the age of twelve, when he went to work...