This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.

Thornton Wilder, Our Town, Act 1

Thornton Wilder as Mr. Antrobus in The Skin of Your [Our] Teeth,
Carl Van Vechten, photographer, August 18, 1948.
Creative Americans, Portraits by Van Vechten, 1932-1964

Thornton Niven Wilder was born April 17, 1897, in Madison, Wisconsin. Arguably one of the greatest playwrights of the twentieth century, Wilder is the only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes for both literature and drama.

Son of a U.S. diplomat, Wilder spent part of his childhood in China. After serving in the Coast Guard during World War I, he earned his B.A. at Yale University in 1920. Six years later, his first novel, The Cabala was published. In 1927, The Bridge of San Luis Rey brought commercial success and his first Pulitzer Prize. From 1930 to 1937 he taught at the University of Chicago.

Wilder's dramatic works include the Pulitzer Prize winning plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth. Set in fictional Grover's Corner, New Hampshire, Our Town (1937) employs a choric narrator called the "Stage Manager," and a minimalist set to underscore the universality of human experience. The Skin of Our Teeth debuted in 1943 with Frederic March and Talullah Bankhead in the lead roles. Again, the themes are familiar—war, pestilence, economic depression, fire. Ignoring the limits of time and space, just four characters and three acts are used to review the history of mankind.

Wilder authored seven novels, three plays, as well as a variety of shorter works including essays, one act plays, and scholarly articles. Greatly transformed, his play The Matchmaker became the Broadway and film hit Hello Dolly. His last novel, Theophilus North, was published in 1973. Wilder died in his sleep, December 7, 1975.

Church at Lancaster, New Hampshire,
Arthur Rothstein, photographer, February 1936.
FSA/OWI Photographs, 1935-1945

• Wilder is just one of 39 authors photographed by Carl Van Vechten and available in Creative Americans: Portraits by Van Vechten, 1932-1964. Also available is a biography of Van Vechten.
• Search the Today in History Archive on writer to find additional features on American authors including pages on Wilder's contemporary F. Scott Fitzgerald and his good friend Gertrude Stein.
• See what Wilder's contemporaries such as Orson Welles were doing in the theater. Visit the collection The New Deal Stage: Selections from the Federal Theatre Project. Read Four Illustrated Articles on the project to learn more about innovative theater of the 1930s.
• To develop a bibliography of works by and about Thornton Wilder, use the Library of Congress Online Catalogs. Choose Subj-Name-Title-Call# then enter the term Wilder, Thornton and do a Subject Browse or a Name Browse for a list of works by and about Wilder.
• Visit the Pulitzer Prize Web site for a list of the recently named 2002 prize winners as well as winners from years past.