Carpenter, Edward Childs

(1872-1950)

   The respected novelist and playwright Edward Childs Carpenter was born in Philadelphia. He began writing plays during his years with the Philadelphia inquirer, 1905-1916, beginning with The Dragon Fly (1905, with Luther Long), followed by a dramatization of his own 1906 novel Captain Courtesy. His longest-running plays were The Cinderella Man (1916, 192 performances), The Bachelor Father (1928, 264 performances), and Whistling in the Dark (1932, with Laurence Gross, 144 performances). He was president of the Dramatists' Theatre Inc., 1924-1927, and of the Dramatists Guild, 1930-1935.