Anderson, Maxwell

(1888-1959)

   Playwright Maxwell Anderson is considered to be a product of North Dakota, although he was born in Atlantic City, Pennsylvania. He taught school and had a substantial career as a journalist before making a relatively late debut as a dramatist with the quickly forgotten The White Desert (1923). His fellow journalist at the New York World, Lawrence Stallings, had fought in World War I and worked with Anderson to turn those experiences into a gritty realistic drama in which the characters talked the way men in war actually talk. The strong language in What Price Glory shocked theatergoers, but the play ranked as runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in 1925.

   Anderson's social conscience is evident in many of his subsequent works. Outside Looking In (1925) follows a group of hobos, some of whom seek the chance to make a better life against the odds. Gods of the Lightning (1928, with Harold Hickerson) sprang from his anger over the apparent miscarriage of justice that led to the Sacco-Vanzetti executions the year before. The play shows striking workers framed by corrupt police. Saturday's Children (1927) is a comedy but deals with the real-world difficulties of low-income marriage. In the 1930s, Anderson turned to writing historical dramas in verse and espousing the cause of poetry on the stage, while critics elevated him to the top rank of American dramatists.