Arthur (Smith), Joseph

Arthur [Smith], Joseph (1848–1906), playwright. One of the most successful turn‐of‐the‐century melodramatists, he was born in Centerville, Indiana, the son of a clergyman, and served as a newspaper reporter and foreign correspondent before turning to the theatre. Despite his wide travels, most of his best plays were set in his native state; but it was neither his settings nor plots that accounted for his sometimes huge successes. Rather, like Dion Boucicault, he had a special gift for contriving unusual, sensational, and memorable scenes. The Still Alarm (1887) featured a scene in a firehouse in which firemen slide down the pole and prepare the fire engine, horses and all, while in Blue Jeans (1890) an unconscious man is placed on a belt moving ever closer to a whirling buzz saw. Among his other plays were a comedy, A Cold Day When We Get Left (1885); The Corncracker (1893), dealing with family members long separated; The Cherry Pickers (1896), a military melodrama set in India; and The Salt of the Earth (1898), in which a country boy rises in politics to win his sweetheart's hand. A shrewd businessman, Arthur died wealthy with no fewer than a dozen touring companies still presenting his plays.