‘Ah, Sweet Mystery’: Rediscovering Three Female Lyricists of the Early Twentieth-Century American Musical Theater

Abstract

Critics and historians of American musical theater have often hailed certain key figures as heroes in the development of the musical while overlooking the innovations of musical theater writers who came before them. Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, and others have been studied, analyzed, and revered as the pioneers of the modern musical. As a result, a misconception is perpetuated that nothing of real importance came before Show Boat, and early twentieth-century musical theater forms like operetta and revue have been virtually dismissed as simplistic. But those responsible for such works as Show Boat and Oklahoma! were actually following the lead of the writers who came before them. One such group of nearly forgotten writers were three female lyricists of the early twentieth century: Rida Johnson Young, Dorothy Donnelly, and Anne Caldwell. Despite their enormous successes, contributions, and notoriety in their own day, these women have been largely ignored in the history books, their names only mentioned in passing next to the title of the show, while the focus is primarily on the show's composers. This article explores the careers of these women and analyzes a few of the songs for which they are still known in an effort to situate them in the musical theater canon and evaluate them as artists.