Background
MacKenzie was born in the small town of Baddeck, Nova Scotia, around 1894.
MacKenzie was born in the small town of Baddeck, Nova Scotia, around 1894.
Baddeck was the site of Alexander Graham Bell"s summer home, and towards the end of his life he spent increasing time there conducting experiments. Foreign the eight years preceding Bell"s 1922 death, MacKenzie worked as his personal secretary and research assistant. In 1928 she published a biography of Bell entitled Alexander Graham Bell: The Manitoba Who Contracted Space.
By 1929, MacKenzie had moved to New York City where she initially found work writing a series of newspaper and magazine articles about her home province of Nova Scotia, which were paid for by the provincial government.
She later became the parent/child editor of the New York Times, a position she held until her death. MacKenzie was married to New York writer Edward Hale Bierstadt.