Beatrice Siegel was born to Samuel and Sophie Jacobson in New York City.  She graduated Brooklyn College with a B.A. in 1932, and received her M.A. from Cornell University in 1936.  She married Samuel R. Siegel and has a daughter, Andra from a previous marriage.

        Although Ms Siegel’s major in college had been languages, she began to look at things from a historical perspective.  She researched and explored a number of topics, such as American colonists, Native American Indians, early technology, life in the lower East Side of New York City, and famous women in the twentieth century.  This research led Ms Siegel to become the author of several history books and biographies, which she geared  specifically to a young adult audience.

        Ms Siegel’s research yielded a number of books on various topics such as the early colonists and their relationship with the Native American Indians.  Both these subjects were incorporated into her book titled The Basket Maker and the Spinner, in which the Indian basket weaver and colonial spinners learn how to preserve their art and craft.  In a similar vein, she authored A New Look at the Pilgrims; Fur Trappers and the Traders; Indians of the Northeast Woodlands: Before and After the Pilgrims and Sam Ellis's Island.  Miss Siegel researched early American technology and described it in The Steam Engine and in The Sewing Machine.  In her book on Lillian Wald of Henry Street, Ms Siegel wrote about Miss Wald, an early leader in women's and children's rights, labor, and world health.

        Although Beatrice Siegel wrote primarily for young adults, some of her writings described the hardships and eventual gains of women in powerful positions, which made a great impact on her young female readers. Some examples of these works are:  Cory, Corazon Aquino and the Philippines; George and Martha Washington at Home in New York; Alicia Alonso, the Story of a Ballerina; and Eye on the World: Margaret Bourke-White, Photographer.

        Ms Siegel admitted that she had not originally thought about being a writer and did her undergraduate work in French and German.  However, upon graduation during the height of the Great Depression, she “turned to more immediate interests, such as history and political theory”.  She became “involved with non-profit organizations, the struggle against war, the rights of minority peoples, and the efforts toward a safe ecological world.”  Ms Siegel described Lillian Wald in her book Lillian Wald of Henry Street " ...as a complex, fascinating woman who exerted  strong hold on all who came to know her ... with a commitment to social change."  This might well describe Beatrice Siegel herself.