Crothers, Rachel

Crothers, Rachel (1878–1958), playwright. Born in Bloomington, Illinois, she had dabbled at playwriting before she entered the State Normal School of Illinois. After studying acting at the Stanhope‐Wheatcroft School and performing professionally for several seasons, Crothers abandoned acting when her first play, Nora (1903), was produced. Her first successful work was The Three of Us (1906), a story of a spunky sister who protects her brothers' interests in a Nevada mine. Several subsequent plays had short runs before she had better luck with A Man's World (1910), Young Wisdom (1914), Old Lady 31 (1916), A Little Journey (1918), and 39 East (1919). Crothers then hit her stride with a series of plays that explored the roles men and women played in contemporary society: He and She (1920), Nice People (1921), Mary the Third (1923), Expressing Willie (1924), A Lady's Virtue (1925), Venus (1927), Let Us Be Gay (1929), As Husbands Go (1931), and When Ladies Meet (1932). Her last play was Susan and God (1937), describing the problems that ensue when a rich matron discovers religion. During World War I Crothers founded Stage Women's War Relief. She was a consummate craftsman, who, as Howard Taubman noted, “used the stage to articulate the case for woman's freedom. When the battle was won, she did not shrink from poking fun at the liberated woman's pretensions.”