Rachel Crothers’ ‘New Women’: A Reading.

Abstract

Rachel Crothers was the most successful American woman playwright in the early part of 20th century. She was a teacher of acting and herself, briefly an actress. She has written dozens of plays in a career that spanned three decades. Although women have very rarely been accepted as directors, she directed and cast most of her own plays, often designing the sets as well. She dramatized many of the problems faced by women: the conflict between marriage and career; motherhood and career, the unfairness of the double standard; the loneliness of the single career woman; the hollowness of many marriages; the opposition faced by strong successful women.