OUR TOWN

Thornton Niven Wilder’s Chronology

1897 — Born in Madison, Wisconsin (April 17)
1906 — Moves to Hong Kong in May and to Berkeley, California in October
1906-10 — Emerson Public School in Berkeley
1910-11 — China Inland Mission School, Chefoo, China (one year)
1912-13 — Thacher School, Ojai, CA (one year). First play known to be produced: The Russian Princess
1915 — Graduates from Berkeley High School; active in school dramatics
1915-17 — Oberlin College; published regularly
1920 — B.A. Yale College (3-month service in 1918 with U.S. Army in 1918); many publications
1920-21 — American Academy in Rome (8-month residency)
1920s — French teacher at Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey (’21-’25 & ’27-’28)
1924 — First visit to the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire
1926 — M.A. in French literature, Princeton University
The Trumpet Shall Sound produced off-Broadway (American Laboratory Theatre)
The Cabala (first novel)
1927 —  The Bridge of San Luis Rey (novel- Pulitzer Prize)
1928 — The Angel That Troubled The Waters (first published collection of drama—playlets)
1930s — Part-time faculty, University of Chicago (comparative literature and composition); lectures
across the country;
first Hollywood screen-writing assignment (1934); extensive foreign travel
1930 — The Woman of Andros (novel)
Completion of home for his family and himself in Hamden, Connecticut
1931 — The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays (six one-act plays)
1932 — Lucrece opens on Broadway staring Katharine Cornell (translation of André Obey’s Le Viol de
Lucrèce)
1935 — Heaven’s My Destination (novel)
1937 — A Doll’s House (adaptation/ trans.) opens on Broadway with Ruth Gordon
1938 — Our Town (Pulitzer Prize) and The Merchant of Yonkers open on Broadway
1942 — The Skin of Our Teeth opens on Broadway (Pulitzer Prize)
Screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Shadow of a Doubt
1942-45 — Service with Army Air Force in North Africa and Italy (Lieut. Col. at discharge – Bronze Star
and O.B.E.)
1948 — The Ides of March (novel); performing in his plays in summer stock in this period
The Victors opens off-Broadway (translation of Sartre’s Morts sans sépulture)
1949 — Major role in Goethe Convocation in Aspen; lectures widely.
1951-52 — Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard
1952 — Gold Medal for Fiction, American Academy of Arts and Letters
1953 — Cover of Time Magazine (January 12)
1955 — The Matchmaker opens on Broadway staring Ruth Gordon
The Alcestiad produced at Edinburgh Festival with Irene Worth (as A Life in the Sun)
1957 — German Peace Prize
1961 — Libretto for The Long Christmas Dinner (music by Paul Hindemith—premieres in Mannheim,
West Germany)
1962 — “Plays for Bleecker Street” (Someone from Assisi, Infancy, and Childhood) premiere at NYC’s
Circle in the Square
Libretto for The Alcestiad (music by Louise Talma—premieres in Frankfurt, West Germany)
1963 — Presidential Medal of Freedom
1964 — Hello, Dolly! starring Carol Channing opens on Broadway
1965 — National Book Committee’s Medal for Literature
1967 — The Eighth Day (National Book Award for Fiction)
1973 — Theophilus North (novel)
1975 — Dies in sleep in Hamden, CT on December 7. Buried at Mt. Carmel Cemetery, Hamden,
Connecticut

For more information visit www.thorntonwilder.com and www.thorntonwildersociety.org.