Anne Crawford Flexner

Anne Crawford Flexner (June 27, 1874 – January 11, 1955) born Anne Laziere Crawford, was an American playwright.

Anne Crawford Flexner
Anne Crawford Flexner, from a 1919 publication.
Born
Anne Laziere Crawford

June 27, 1874
Georgetown, Kentucky
DiedJanuary 11, 1955
Providence, Rhode Island
OccupationPlaywright
Spouse(s)Abraham Flexner
ChildrenEleanor Flexner
Jean Flexner
RelativesSimon Flexner (brother-in-law)

Early life and education

Anne Laziere Crawford was born in Georgetown, Kentucky, the daughter of Louis G. Crawford and Susan Farnum.[1] She earned a bachelor's degree from Vassar College in 1895.[2] One of her Vassar classmates was newspaper publisher and efficiency expert Georgie Boynton Child; Crawford was matron of honor at Boynton's wedding in 1903.[3]

Career

In 1897, Anne Crawford moved to New York City to seek a literary career. She wrote drama reviews for the Louisville Courier-Journal, and began writing her own plays. Her first success, Miranda of the Balcony (based on a novel by A. E. W. Mason) starred Minnie Maddern Fiske when it opened in 1901. She also adapted the works of her Louisville friend Alice Hegan Rice for the stage, as Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1904), starring Madge Carr Cook.[1]

The Blue Pearl (1920); film poster for adaptation of Flexner play.

Plays by Anne Crawford Flexner
  • A Man's Woman (1899)[4]
  • Miranda of the Balcony (1901)
  • Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1904)[5]
  • A Lucky Star (1910)
  • The Marriage Game (1913)[6]
  • Wanted – An Alibi (1917)
  • The Blue Pearl (1918)
  • All Soul's Eve (1920)
  • Aged 26 (1936)[7][8]

Film adaptations

Flexner's 1904 play Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch was adapted for the screen in 1914, 1919, 1934, and 1942. The Blue Pearl (1918) became a film in 1920, and All Soul's Eve (1920) was adapted for the screen in 1921.[1]

Personal life

Anne Crawford married educator Abraham Flexner in 1898.[1] Their daughter Jean Flexner attended the London School of Economics;[9] their younger daughter Eleanor Flexner (1908–1995) was a noted scholar and proponent of women's studies.[10] Anne Crawford Flexner was hospitalized in mental decline for the last years of her life, and died in 1955, aged 80 years, in Providence, Rhode Island.[1] Some of her papers are included in the Abraham Flexner Papers, in the Library of Congress.[11] Jean Flexner Lewison wrote a biography of her parents, A Family Memoir, 1899–1989, and Abraham Flexner wrote an autobiography, published in 1960.

References
  1. Boewe, Mary. "Flexner, Anne Crawford". American National Biography. Oxford University Press. (subscription required)
  2. College, Vassar (1895). Annual Catalogue. p. 65.
  3. "Were Married in Sewaren". Perth Amboy Evening News. June 25, 1903. p. 1. Retrieved June 24, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. Flexner, Anne Crawford (1899). A Man's Woman: A Play.
  5. Flexner, Anne Crawford (1928). Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch: A Dramatization in Three Acts. S. French.
  6. Flexner, Anne Crawford (1916). The Marriage Game: A Comedy in Three Acts. B. W. Huebsch.
  7. Atkinson, Brooks (December 22, 1936). "THE PLAY; John Keats and His Fortunes the Subject of Anne Crawford Flexner's 'Aged 26.'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 24, 2020.
  8. Flexner, Anne Crawford (1937). Aged 26: A Play about John Keats. Oxford University Press.
  9. Bonner, Thomas Neville (1998). "Searching for Abraham Flexner". Academic Medicine. 73: 160–6. doi:10.1097/00001888-199802000-00014. PMID 9484189.
  10. Flexner, Eleanor; Fitzpatrick, Ellen Frances (1996). Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States. Harvard University Press. pp. xi–xii. ISBN 978-0-674-10653-6.
  11. "Abraham Flexner papers,". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved June 24, 2020.
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