Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 3
Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950., Ed.

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[290] the more solid variety of his ability. All told, he reflects a nervousness which, while representative of the times, is not an enviable attribute in a nation, though its flexible humour indicates aliveness of mind and quick realization of national foibles. Mr. Dooley, Ade, and Cohan show, by the success they have had at the hands of the public, that as a people we are capable of enjoying humour, comic and trenchant, at our own expense.

The matter of popularity and permanence has confused the history of playwriting in America. There was a time when Joaquin Miller's The Danites held audiences spellbound; when Campbell's My partner was considered as representative of America as Bret Harte's The luck of roaring camp. Way down East (7 February, 1898) and In Old Kentucky (27 April, 1897), by their extended acceptance, should place Lottie Blair Parker and Charles T. Dazey in the forefront of the theatre. But they are not widely known today. Nor is Martha Morton the significant figure she bid fair to be when she wrote His wife's father (Miner's Fifth Avenue Theatre, 25 February, 1895). Even the success of Little Lord Fauntleroy (10 September, 1888) did not make Frances Hodgson Burnett a dramatist, though she commanded the stage in several other plays for many years. The allurement held forth by large profits at first attracted the literary worker and then the layman in any field who thought playwriting lucrative. Colleges began offering courses in dramatic technique, and from the classes of Professor George P. Baker at Harvard and Professor Brander Matthews at Columbia commendable graduates have come to the theatre. The consequence is that the number of American writers of drama has increased largely, with not a commensurate increase of typically American plays.

The most notable examples of dramatic contributions within the past twenty years are William Vaughn Moody's The great divide (3 October, 1906), Josephine Preston Peabody's The Piper (New Theatre, 30 January, 1911), George C. Hazelton and J. H. Benrimo's The yellow Jacket (Fulton Theatre, 4 November, 1912), Charles Kenyon's Kindling (Daly's Theatre, 3 December, 1911), and Eugene Walter's The Easiest way (Belasco Theatre, 19 January, 1909). Moody,¹ whose untimely death cut short the future of a man who, with his literary sense