Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/830

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Women in Professions
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decorated by the French Academy in 1904; is a member of the Photo Club of Paris, New York Camera Club and the Washington Camera Club.

Playwrights.

At the organization of the Women's Playwright Club, of New York City, there were forty women eligible for admission. This vocation for women is especially an American institution. In no other country are there so many who have obtained recognition in a field where the compensation is the same for women as for men. The New Theatre when opened made its bow to the public with a play from the pen of an American woman.

Mary Hunter Austin, the newest woman dramatist, has spent the greater part of her life in the West, and many of her plays deal with the border life.

Margaret Mayo is another successful playwright, who was the author of "Baby Mine" and "Polly of the Circus," two of the biggest New York successes. In private life Miss Mayo is the wife of Edgar Selwyn, a successful writer and playwright of distinction. He is the author of "The Country Boy."

Kate Douglas Wiggin, whose writings we are all familiar with, dramatized her "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm."

Charlotte Thompson made a most successful dramatization of "The Awakening of Helena Richie," in which Margaret Anglin starred.

Another successful playwright is the author of "The Nest Egg"—Anne Caldwell, who has been an actress, opera singer, musician, composer, magazine and newspaper writer.

The music of "The Top of the World" is her composition, position.