Garland Anderson (1886-1939)

October 24, 2007

Garland Anderson

A pioneer playwright and moralistic philosopher of constructive thinking, Garland Anderson was the first African American known to have a serious full-length drama produced on Broadway in New York. Active in the theatre for over 10 years during the 1920s and 1930s, he achieved national prominence as “the San Francisco Bellhop Playwright.”

Garland Anderson was born in Wichita, Kansas. He completed only four years of formal schooling before the family moved to California. Working as a bellhop in a San Francisco hotel, he often shared his optimistic philosophy of life with guests who encouraged him to write about his ideas. Anderson believed an individual might achieve anything in life through faith.

Anderson became a playwright after viewing a production of Channing Pollock’s moralistic drama The Fool. Anderson wrote his first play, Appearances (1924), in only three weeks, with no training in playwriting style or technique. Failing to find a producer, he personally raised $15,000 towards the production. Despite numerous obstacles, his play opened on Broadway in 1925 with the help and support of the actor Al Jolson and the President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge. The play Appearances was a courtroom drama about a bellboy on trial who was falsely accused of raping a white woman. Owing to the central character’s strong moral convictions, he was eventually exonerated.

Anderson spent the last period of his life lecturing on his beliefs about constructive thinking, on which he wrote a book titled Uncommon Sense (1933). Garland Anderson died in San Francisco in 1939.

About the Author

Author Profile

Anthony Duane Hill

Dr. Anthony D. Hill, writer, director, administrator, and associate professor of drama in the Department of Theatre at The Ohio State University, has also taught at Vassar College, University of California at Santa Barbara. He has concentrated on previously marginalized theatre practices, African American and American theatre history, and performance theory and criticism. He currently focuses on the life and works of August Wilson, and African American Cinema, and Black masculinity in the works of African American male playwrights. Hill is author with Douglas Q. Barnett of Historical Dictionary of African American Theater (Scarecrow Press, 2008, 642 pgs.). His book Pages from the Harlem Renaissance: A Chronicle of Performance (Peter Lang, 1996, 186 pgs.) is now in its third reprint. He is featured in Whose Who in Black Columbus (2006 ed.). His essays have appeared in such journals as Text and Presentation, Journal of the Comparative Drama Conference; Black Studies: Current Issues, Enduring Questions; and African American Review (formerly Black American Literature Forum). He contributed historical articles to Dr. Quintard Taylor’s on-line Pursuing the Past in the Twenty-first Century; a book review in The Journal of the Southern Central Modern Language Association; and was contributing editor for History of the Theatre (9th ed.), Theatre Studies, and Elimu. Hill received degrees in theatre at the University of Washington (B.A.), Queens College (M.A.), and in performance studies at New York University (Ph.D.).

Categories:
African American History People in African American History

Tags:
19th Century (1800-1899) Education - Historically Black Colleges (HBCU) Gender - Men Occupation - Literary - Playwright Occupation - Literary - Writer Philosophers United States - California United States - Kansas United States - New York

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CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Hill, A. (2007, October 24). Garland Anderson (1886-1939). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/anderson-garland-1886-1939/

Source of the Author's Information:

Garland Anderson, Uncommon Sense: The Law of Life in Action (London: L.N Fowler & Company 1933); Anthony Duane Hill, ed., An Historical Dictionary of African American Theater (Prevessin, France: Scarecrow Press, 2008).