Bronson Howard, Playwright (1842-1908)

Bronson Howard was one of the first American playwrights to use American content and themes in his plays. A practical commercial playwright, he made his living writing plays. Recognized both here and abroad as the Dean of American Dramatists, Howard wrote 27 different plays which were produced under 39 different titles.

Bronson Crocker Howard was the son of Charles Howard, a merchant and one time Mayor of the Detroit. Young Bronson prepared to go to Yale, but because of eye trouble, he instead began work at a Detroit newspaper and wrote plays. The first of these to be produced was Fantine (1864), an adaptation of an episode from Les Miserables. In 1865 Mr. Howard went to New York and found work as a journalist until Augustin Daly staged Saratoga at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, December 21, 1870. The play ran one hundred and one nights, a very successful run. It is a nearly farcical comedy of the manners of 1870 America. It deals with the adventures of Bob Sackett, who is engaged to be married to four girls at once. Next came Diamonds, a comedy produced in New York September 26, 1872, and Moorcroft or The Double Wedding, a comedy, played in New York, October 17, 1874, based in part on a short story by John Hay. His next major play was The Banker's Daughter, produced first at Hooley's Theatre, Chicago, September 4, 1873, as Lillian's Last Love, and under its final title at the Union Square Theatre, New York, September 30, 1878. This play which was, according to Professor Quinn, "based on the theme of a woman's self-sacrifice for her father's sake, through which she marries a man she does not love", held the stage for many years. Howard wrote about the development of The Banker's Daughter in The Autobiography of a Play. Next came, in rapid succession, Old Love Letters, a charming one-act play, based on the return of a package of letters between two former lovers, which was played at the Park Theatre, New York, August 31, 1878; Hurricanes, a comedy produced first in Chicago at Hooley's Theatre, May 27, 1878, and later in England under the title Truth; Wives, a comedy adapted from Molière's Ecole des Femmes and Ecole des Maris, played at Daly's Theatre, New York, October 18, 1879 and Fun in a Green Room, a comedy played at Booth's Theatre, New York, April 10, 1882. His next most significant play was Young Mrs. Winthrop, a study of the estrangement of a husband and wife through circumstances and their reconciliation through their child. It was first played at the Madison Square Theatre, New York, October 9, 1882. A very successful comedy, One of Our Girls, the scene of which is laid in France, was first played at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, November 10, 1885. Met by Chance, a romantic play, performed at the Lyceum Theatre, New York, January 11, 1887, was not a success, but on September 26 of the same year The Henrietta began its career at the Union Square Theatre. This is a dramatization of the motives that move Wall Street and in it Mr. William H. Crane and Mr. Stuart Robson achieved one of the great successes of their joint careers. It has been revived by Mr. Crane who is still playing in a revision of it. Baron Rudolf, written originally in 1881, was played in New York, October 25, 1887. Shenandoah came in 1888 and Aristocracy, a comedy in which social types, both national and international, are contrasted was put on first at Palmer's Theatre, New York, November 14, 1892. Peter Stuyvesant, an historical comedy, written in collaboration with Mr. Brander Matthews, and played at Wallack's Theatre, New York, October 2, 1899, was the last play of Mr. Howard's to be performed. Knave and Queen and Kate, the latter a clever international play, have not been performed. Mr. Howard died at Avon, New Jersey, August 4, 1908.

Shenandoah which he wrote, at the height of his career, proved to be the most popular of Mr. Howard's plays. It was first produced at the Boston Museum on November 19, 1888. Based on an earlier work which Mr. Howard had produced in Louisville, Kentucky, about twenty years before, it was not a success at its first tryout in Boston. But after revisions, it was transferred to the Star Theatre, New York, September 9, 1889 and ran the entire season.