Best known as the author of 1928's expressionistic drama Machinal, Sophie Treadwell (1885-1970) often finds herself filed away in today's theatre history books as something of a "one hit wonder" playwright. However, this trite categorization is not only untrue with regards to her career as a playwright, but it also ignores her career as a successful, well-known journalist. This study focuses on the first thirty years of the nineteen hundreds, as those were Treadwell's formative career years. This time became her most prolific period as a journalist, as well as seeing more of her plays produced than at any other time in her life. Before now, Treadwell's journalism has largely been ignored as insignificant and unrelated to her playwriting. However, this thesis proves that her research and writing for newspapers directly impacted her theatrical interests and career.
At issue here is Treadwell's career as a journalist and the constant relationship between her reporting and playwriting. The thesis begins by describing how trends and activities in early twentieth century journalism eventually influenced Treadwell. Next, Treadwell's own beginnings in journalism, her interest in Mexico, and her reports on murder trials such as the one that inspired her to write Machinal are addressed. The thesis does not analyze the whole of Treadwell's dramatic works, but focuses on Gringo and Machinal as key examples of Treadwell's plays that flowed out of her journalism.