Rachel Crothers was a celebrated presence on the Broadway stage for almost four decades. As a director and producer she required complete control of her productions. As a playwright she was distinctive in keeping the spotlight on women and the issues that concerned them. She offered the American public the latest feminist ideas and plots in which attractive young women struggled with critical life decisions. She identified her work as a mirror of women's progress, a "Dramatic History of Women" and "Comédie Humaine de la Femme." Crothers's war work and support of other theater workers went beyond the call of duty, and she received many awards. Her plays, especially the earlier ones with the clearest feminist themes, enjoyed a minor revival in the 1980s and 1990s, although most of them have since gone out of print.

Rachel Crothers was born on 12 December 1870 in Bloomington, Illinois, the...