Milton Meltzer

Milton Meltzer was one of the most important and prolific nonfiction children's authors of the past half century; he died last Saturday, the 19th, at home here in Manhattan; he was a Worcester native, though, and evidently lived and wrote in Massachussets a while as an adult. 

Here are the obituaries from the New York Times, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the School Library Journal. Also, here's a fascinating interview I found about his time as a young writer with the WPA during the Depression (from the website History Matters). This isn't exactly about his later children's writing, but it does show where he came from as a progressive and how and why he chose to write about organized labor, civil rights, and similar topics for children and youth.