He was born John Wesley Conroy to Irish immigrants on December 5, 1898 in the coal mining camp of Monkey Nest near Moberly, Missouri ""Jack Conroy." Moberly Area Community College. Moberly Area Community College, Web. 29 Oct 2009. . A Depression-era novelist, Conroy drew upon his childhood growing up in a mining camp and elements of this can be seen in his novels, The Disinherited and A World to Win.

Though he did not complete a formal education, he worked at various jobs including: railroad shop apprentice (and eventual foreman), recording secretary for the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen union office, an auto factory worker, and construction . While he worked, he wrote and it is said that in 1934, when soaring temperatures had burned up crops and blistered city streets, Conroy moved his kitchen table outdoors beneath a shade tree where he created his second novel, A World to Win .

From 1931 to 1941 Conroy edited successively the magazines Rebel Poet, The Anvil, and The New Anvil. He included works by Erskine Caldwell, Langston Hughes, and William Carlos Williams, among others . Conroy later edited, with Curt Johnson, a collection of these pieces, Writers in Revolt: The Anvil Anthology (1973) . In 1938 Conroy came to Chicago, on Algren's suggestions, to work on the Illinois Writer's Project . Along with recording folktales and industrial folklore, Conroy was assigned to the black history portion of the IWP, and collaborated with Arna Bontemps, producing the pioneering black studies works They Seek A City (1945) and Anyplace But Here (1965), both about African-American migration from the South to the North . Conroy and Bontemps also collaborated on several successful juvenile books based on folktales, including The Fast Sooner Hound (1942) and Slappy Hooper, The Wonderful Sign Painter (1946) .

In 1965, Conroy moved from Chicago back to Moberly, Missouri, where he lived until his death in 1990. He continued to write into his 80's, publishing The Weed King and Other Stories in 1985 . Over the course of his career, Conroy was also a teacher and lecturer, and a mentor to younger radical writers . Known as The Sage of Moberly , Conroy also wrote under the pseudonyms of Tim Brennan and John Norcross . He died February 28, 1990 in Moberly, MO .

The difficulty scholars have had in finding theoretical studies about the worker-writer in America signifies how ground-breaking Jack Conroy’s work was with introducing the worker-writer in literature . Conroy’s first novel, The Disinherited, confused critics because it was a narrative that challenged traditional views of the novel and did not seem to align with what was considered influential literature at the time "Abrams, Alan. "Author found his inspiration in Toledo's Willys plant." Toledo Blade 06 Mar 1994: E-4. Online. . Most critics felt that there should be a definite line drawn between the world of the middle-class literate, and the world of the worker .

Although Conroy first achieved national attention when H.L. Mencken discovered his work and published Conroy’s sketches and stories in The American Mercury magazine , recognition of Conroy’s work was all but abandoned between the 1930s and 1960’s. Awareness of Conroy’s work disappeared for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty Conroy had in simultaneously establishing himself as a writer and staying loyal to his identity as a worker. Although Conroy longed for literary success, he decided not to abandon his worker identity, and so he worked for 23 years as an editor of an encyclopedia sold through Sears stores and as a book reviewer for the Chicago Sun and the Daily Defender . It wasn’t until the 1960s that Conroy was recognized by a new generation as a writer who knew very well the life of the worker, and as an influential writer of that worker identity .

Conroy is now remembered not only as the worker-writer, but as a teacher, lecturer, and mentor to younger radical writers. Until Jack Conroy, the worker had hardly been mentioned in American literature. Best-seller lists suggest that people would rather read about lives of the wealthy, but Jack Conroy’s legacy as a worker-writer has introduced to American literature one writer’s desire in “educating readers to prefer ‘crude vigor to polished urbanity’” . Along with his work with rather unique literary themes, Conroy has won various awards and recognition, including :

• Guggenheim Fellowship, 1935
• Literary Times Award, State of Illinois, 1967
• Society of Midland Authors James L. Dow Award for Anyplace But Here, 1967
• Rabinowitz grant to write his autobiography
• Missouri Literary Association, Literary Award, 1969
• Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, University of Missouri at Kansas City, 1975
• National Endowment for the Arts, Artist’s grant (1978)
• Mark Twain Award, Society for the Midwestern Literature, 1980
• Recognition by the Missouri Senate, 1984
• City of Moberly, Jack Conroy Day, May 22, 1985
• Society of Midland Authors Award for Lifetime Achievement, 1986
• Lifetime Membership, Missouri Folklore Society
• “A True Friend of Working People”, Central Missouri Labor Council, AFL-CIO and all the working men and women of Mid-Missouri