Our Town (Author Biography)

Author Biography

The surviving member of a pair of twin boys, Thornton Niven Wilder was born on April 17, 1897, in Madison, Wisconsin, where his father owned and edited a local newspaper. In 1906, his father, Amos Parker Wilder, relocated the family to Hong Kong after accepting a post as the U. S. Consul General. As a result, Wilder’s early formal education took place in German schools in Hong Kong and Shanghai, the China Inland Mission School at Chefoo, and public schools in California. He graduated from high school in Berkeley, California, in 1915, and then, at the insistence of his father, attended Oberlin College.

After two years, Wilder, again at the insistence of his father, transferred to Yale and graduated in 1920. As a student, Wilder began writing short plays and essays for publication in the Yale Literary Review and had hoped to pursue writing as a career after earning his degree. But Amos Wilder intervened again and found young Thornton a teaching position at Lawrenceville School, a preparatory school for boys near Princeton, New Jersey. While at Lawrenceville, Wilder earned his master’s degree from Princeton University.

In 1927, Wilder published The Bridge of San Luis Rey, a critical and popular success which earned him the Pulitzer Prize and gave him the financial security to resign his position at Lawrenceville and pursue writing as a full-time career. While teaching comparative literature at the University of Chicago, Wilder became increasingly involved with theater and in some of its more experimental aspects. He continued to write and published The Angel That Troubled the Waters, and Other Plays (1928), a collection of short scenes with stage directions considered virtually impossible to accomplish in the theater, a novel, The Woman of Andros (1930) and The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act (1931).

Through his friendship with New York Times critic Alexander Wolcott, Wilder gained entry into New York theatrical circles. In 1938, Our Town brought Wilder both financial success and his second Pulitzer Prize. It ran for 336 performances on Broadway and established Wilder’s reputation as a major dramatist. Wilder’s reputations as a playwright also rests on two comedies, The Matchmaker, (1955, originally performed as The Merchant of Yonkers, 1938) and The Skin of Our Teeth (1943). The Matchmaker was adapted by Michael Stewart and Jerry Herman as their popular musical Hello, Dolly!, and The Skin of Our Teeth earned Wilder his third Pulitzer Prize.

Wilder’s other prominent works include The Ides of March (1948), a historical novel about the last days of Julius Caesar, and The Eighth Day (1967), a novel dealing with the effects of an act of violence on a growing number of people.

In 1963 Thornton Wilder received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 1965 he was honored with the first National Medal of Literature. He died on December 7, 1975, in Hamden, Connecticut, widely recognized as an accomplished dramatist and man of letters whose innovative works remain central to discussions of the American theater.