Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1915 — WORK OF MANY PLAYWRIGHTS [ARTICLE]

WORK OF MANY PLAYWRIGHTS

Fifty-Three Thousand Dramas Have Been Copyrighted In the United States. An unusual work, which will be ot literary and historic interest, is now well under way by the copyright office es the library of congress. This IS a list of an dramas copyrighted in the United States firom 1870. to the present time. In the editorial comment of the

Monthly Catalogue of. United States Public Documents it is estimated that there are about 53,000 of these plays. Then a note of discouragement is sounded for would-be. playwrights, for it is stated that estimates show that less than one In fifty of the dramas has been produced on the stage. The new list therefore means the resurrection of the titles of many thousands of long-buried compositions, some of which, it is suggested by the editor of the Catalogue, “may even yet see the footlights through the benevolent

agency of the new list now being made.” The list will be comprehensive in scope, and, in addition to the .names of dramas and authors, will carry the names of copyright proprietors, translators, adapters, and the names of original authors in the cases of adaptations. Three volumes may be required for this addition to the dramatic literature of the United States. Montana and Idaho now have a ninehour day tor working women. ,