Garland Anderson, 1928

Description: Studio portrait of Garland Anderson.
Garland Anderson was a playwright and moralistic philosopher of constructive thinking. He was the first African American known to have a serious full-length drama produced on Broadway in New York. Active in the theatre for over 10 years during the 1920s and 1930s. Anderson spent the last period of his life lecturing on his beliefs about constructive thinking, on which he wrote a book titled Uncommon Sense (1933).
Caption: Written on back of photo: The first Negro writer to achieve Broadway production was Garland Anderson, a former San Francisco bellhop. En route to New York he made a cross-country auto tour to publicize his play and was greeted by the mayor in front of City Hall in 1925. Garland Anderson, San Francisco playwright. His first play was produced on Broadway.