Edith Juliet Rich was born on March 27, 1878, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; she grew up in that city and received her A.B. degree from Milwaukee-Downer College in 1897. She began her long and distinguished career in journalism at the Milwaukee Sentinel, becoming its literary editor in 1903. The following year she married Attorney Lewis Montefiore Isaacs of New York City, where she was to live until her death in 1956. For many years she also wrote under the name of “Mrs. Pelham” for Delineator, Ladies Home Journal, and several other magazines. But she is best remembered for distinguished contribution to the American theater not only as a critic, but perhaps most importantly, as editor of Theatre Arts Magazine from 1918 until 1946. Under her leadership, this periodical grew from a quarterly to a monthly publication in 1923, and published some of the earliest works of Eugene O'Neill, Thornton Wilder, William Saroyan, and Paul Green, all of whom are represented in this collection. She not only encouraged the younger playwrights and published their works first in Theatre Arts, but also promoted a number of scene designers, notably Robert Edmond Jones, Norman Bel Geddes, Jo Mielziner, Donald Oenslager, Lee Simonson, and Mordecai Gorelik. In the field of dramatic criticism she helped launch the careers of John Mason Brown, John Hutchens, and Carl Carmer, to name but a few.
For more than a half-century Mrs. Isaacs championed the cause of all arts of which theater is comprised, including playwriting, acting, directing, dance, music, scene design, and architecture. Her concept of theater included not only the legitimate stage, but also vaudeville, pantomime, the circus, and motion pictures. She was a founder and the first vice-president of the American National Theater and Academy. A devoted promoter of the little theater movement, one of Mrs. Isaacs's dreams was the establishment of a national theater.
Some of the longer publications to be credited to Edith J.R. Isaacs are: Theatre (1927); Plays of American Life and Fantasy,(1929); Architecture for the New Theatre (1935); and The Negro in the American Theatre (1947). In addition to this, she published a series of books on the theater. A partial listing of the authors includes Robert Edmond Jones, Norman bel Geddes, Joseph Urban, Richard Boleslawsky, and Isadora Duncan.
Where lesser women have failed in the manifold and demanding roles of career-woman, wife, mother, and friend to many, Mrs. Isaacs would seem to be most successful in all of these capacities. The collection somewhat uniquely bears witness to this, offering an insight into these many facets of her active live.
