Bartley Campbell
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Bartley T. Campbell (1843-1888) was a popular American playwright of the latter 19th century.
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[edit] Early years
Campbell was born in Pennsylvania in 1843 to parents who had emigrated from Ireland. His writing career began at the age of fifteen in 1858, when he took a job as a reporter for the Pittsburg Post. He later became a drama critic for the Pittsburg Leader and eventually founded the Pittsburg Evening Mail and the Southern Monthly Magazine.
[edit] Playwright years
Campbell's playwright career began in 1871 with the play Through Fire, which ran for four weeks and motivated him to quit journalism. He was quite successful and is often noted as the first American to earn a living solely as a playwright; however, there is some debate about whether or not he was truly the first.
His other plays include: Peril, Fate, Risks, The Virginian, The Big Bonanza, My Partner, The Galley Slave, The White Slave, Siberia, and his final play, Paquita.
[edit] Final years
Campbell was declared insane in September 1886 and died in the State Hospital for the Insane in Middletown, New York in 1888.
Although his works contain language and situations that would be considered politically incorrect today, theatre troops performing his plays can still be found over a century later.
