CROTHERS, RACHEL (1878- ), American playwright, was born in Bloomington, Ill., in 1878. She graduated at the Illinois State Normal school in 1892 and then studied dramatic art in Boston and New York. She made her first stage appear ance as a member of Felix Morris's company in New York city, and was afterwards a member of Madame Rhea's company. Her first play to be professionally produced was "The Rector" at the Madison Square theatre, N.Y., on April 3, 1903. She has pro duced and directed her own plays, the most representative of them dealing with the general question of woman's rights, the most popular of them being "A Man's World," produced in 19o9 (pub lished in Boston, ; "He and She," produced in 1911 (pub lished in A. H. Quinn's Representative American Plays, 1917) ; "Old Lady 31," produced in 1916 (published with "Mary the Third" and "A Little Journey" in Three Plays by Rachel Crothers, 1923) ; "Nice People," produced in 1921 (published in M. J. Moses' Representative American Dramas, Boston, 1925, in A. H. Quinn's Contemporary American Plays, 1923, and also with "Ex pressing Willie," produced 1924, and "39 East," produced 1919, in Three Plays by Rachel Crothers, 1924). Her one-act plays have been published in London in One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, and in Six One-Act Plays, Boston, 1925. In 1926 she pro duced in New York a drama entitled A Lady's Virtue.