Arts and Letters

Sidney Coe Howard was born June 26, 1891, and died August 23, 1939.

In the theatre Americans have made more progress in the twentieth century than in any other art. From 1492 till 1919 no play was written in America that combined distinction in literature with theatrical effectiveness. Clyde Fitch wrote many good acting plays, which also have value for the student of society; but they do not quite belong among permanent contributions to literature.

American drama began in 1919 with Beyond the Horizon, by Eugene O'Neill. During the twenty years after that date, in addition to a succession of plays by O'Neill, the American stage was illuminated by the work of Sidney Howard, Robert E. Sherwood, Elmer Rice, Philip Barry, Maxwell Anderson, Thornton Wilder, Sidney Kingsley, Marc Connelly, and Rachel Crothers.

Sidney Howard was born in Oakland, California, and received his B.A. degree at the University of California in 1915. The following year he was at Harvard, studying under Professor George P. Baker. The next year he went to France and drove an ambulance on the Western Front and in the Balkans. After the United States declared war, he became a Captain in Aviation.

While on the editorial staff of Life, he began to write plays. He was married to Clare Eames, a distinguished American actress. After her death he was married to Leopoldine Blaine Damrosch, daughter of our beloved Walter Damrosch. This was an ideally happy marriage. After three or four dramas that showed potential powers, the Theatre Guild produced in November, 1924, his drama, They Knew What They Wanted; this ran for a year, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In 1925 Lucky Sam McCarver attracted favorable attention, though it was not so good a play as its predecessor; but in 1926-1927 the Theatre Guild produced two of Howard's plays, Ned McCobb's Daughter and The Silver Cord, both adding greatly to his reputation, and the latter being one of the finest American plays of our times.

In the twelve years of activity that followed, Sidney Howard showed a steady advance, both in his art and in its intellectual content. Yellow Jack was a remarkable and wholly original drama, dealing with the heroic conquest of yellow fever; the scenes and their setting were unlike conventional stage effects and were very impressive. One of the most successful adaptations of a modern novel was Mr. Howard's Dodsworth, taken not from Sinclair Lewis's more satirical works, but from what is perhaps his most judicial appraisal and representation of American life. Mr. Lewis collaborated on this play.

Mr. Howard was a cosmopolitan in outlook and in knowledge. He translated and adapted for the stage Edmond Rostand's posthumous play, The Last Night of Don Juan; S. S. Tenacity, from the French of Charles Vildrac; Morals, from the German of Ludwig Thoma; Olympia, from the Hungarian of Molnar; Marius, from the French of Pagnol.

Among other important plays were his Alien Corn and The Late Christopher Bean.

Apart from his work as a man of letters, Mr. Howard took an active part in public affairs. He was President of the American Dramatists Guild, member of the Society of American Dramatists and Composers, and on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union. He held strong convictions as a Liberal; but he was first, last, and all the time a creative writer, devoted to the theatre. He was engaged in the composition of a play at the time of his death. This tragic accident cut short a career that not only had given him a permanent place in the history of American drama, but was full of promise for the future.

Seldom have we seen a man so positive and so sincere in conviction, with so lovable a disposition. Everyone who knew him felt his irresistible charm.