Sophie Treadwell

Sophie Treadwell, born in 1885 in Stockton, California, is a prominent playwright who worked mostly in the first half of the 20th century in the United States of America. Her most well-known work is Machinal, an expressionist play about women’s freedom in the 1920s. Early on in her childhood, Treadwell’s father deserted her and her mother, and they moved to San Francisco, where Sophie first learned of the theatre. She grew up around many strong female role models, including her single mother and her maternal grandmother. Sophie Treadwell was of Mexican and Spanish ancestry on her father’s side.

During her college studies and after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Sophie Treadwell tried her hand at many trades, including journalism, secretary work, teaching English as a second language, and even working as a vaudeville singer. Financial instability followed her into adulthood, as did the beginnings of mental illness that would continue to plague her through her life. After following her husband, another journalist, to New York City, Sophie’s modernist political beliefs and values found their home, and through her writing work she supported women’s suffrage, birth control rights, and increased sexual freedom for women. Married to her husband mostly out of a friendly arrangement, the two maintained separate residences and Sophie was free to engage in outside relationships, a standard almost unheard of for that time. Feminism in its earliest roots was the driving force behind how Treadwell chose to live her life and produce journalistic and dramatic work. One of her most famous causes was that of artists’ rights. She advocated both in court and in government for writers to receive fair compensation for their works. Sophie also pushed the boundaries by pursuing commercial audience for her shows on Broadway, and producing a few of the productions herself. Treadwell also loved to travel with her husband.

All told, Sophie Treadwell wrote at least 39 plays, several novels and short stories, and innumerable pieces of journalism. Many of her works are hard to come by, but all her writings reflect the same commitment to political investigation and human rights.