This Wilder chronology, provided by the Wilder family, details the long, incredible life of the acclaimed American playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder (playwright of The Skin of Our Teeth).

^{Thornton Wilder. Courtesy of The Thornton Wilder Family.}

1897—Born in Madison, Wisconsin (April 17)

1906—Moves to Hong Kong in May and to Berkeley, California in October

1906–10—Emerson Public School in Berkeley

1910–11—China Inland Mission School, Chefoo, China (one year)

1912–13—Thacher School, Ojai, California (one year). First play known to be produced: The Russian Princess

1915—Graduates from Berkeley High School; active in school dramatics

1915–17—Oberlin College; published regularly

1920—B.A. Yale College (3-month service with the U.S. Army in 1918); many publications

1920–21—American Academy in Rome (8-month residency)

1920s—French teacher at Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey (1921–1925 & 1927–1928)

1924—First visit to the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire

1926—M.A. in French Literature, Princeton University; The Trumpet Shall Sound produced Off-Broadway (American Laboratory Theatre); The Cabala (first novel)

1927—The Bridge of San Luis Rey (novel – Pulitzer Prize)

^{Jacqueline Coslow in Seattle Rep's 1968 production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. Photo by Camera Craft.}

1928—The Angel That Troubled The Waters (first published collection of drama – playlets)

1930s—Part-time faculty, University of Chicago (comparative literature and composition); lectures across the country; first Hollywood screen-writing assignment (1934); extensive foreign travel

1930—The Woman of Andros (novel); Completion of home for his family and himself in Hamden, Connecticut

1931—The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays (six one-act plays)

1932—Lucrece opens on Broadway staring Katharine Cornell (translation of André Obey’s Le Viol de Lucrèce)

1935—Heaven’s My Destination (novel)

1937—A Doll’s House (adaptation/translation) opens on Broadway with Ruth Gordon

1938—Our Town (Pulitzer Prize) and The Merchant of Yonkers open on Broadway

1942—The Skin of Our Teeth opens on Broadway (Pulitzer Prize); Screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Shadow of a Doubt

^{Elaine Kerr in Seattle Rep's 1974 production of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. Photo by Greg Gilbert.}

1942–45—Service with Army Air Force in North Africa and Italy (Lieut. Col. at discharge – Bronze Star and O.B.E.)

1948—The Ides of March (novel); performing in his plays in summer stock in this period; The Victors opens Off-Broadway (translation of Sartre’s Morts sans sépulture)

1949—Major role in Goethe Convocation in Aspen; lectures widely

1951–52—Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard

1952—Gold Medal for Fiction, American Academy of Arts and Letters

1953—Cover of Time Magazine (January 12)

1955—The Matchmaker opens on Broadway staring Ruth Gordon; The Alcestiad produced at Edinburgh Festival with Irene Worth (as A Life in the Sun)

^{Seattle Rep's 1975 production of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker.}

1957—German Peace Prize

1961—Libretto for The Long Christmas Dinner (music by Paul Hindemith – premieres in Mannheim, West Germany)

1962—“Plays for Bleecker Street” (Someone from Assisi, Infancy, and Childhood) premieres at New York City’s Circle in the Square; Libretto for The Alcestiad (music by Louise Talma) premieres in Frankfurt, West Germany

1963—Presidential Medal of Freedom

1964—Hello, Dolly! (based on Wilder’s The Matchmaker) opens on Broadway starring Carol Channing

1965—National Book Committee’s Medal for Literature

1967—The Eighth Day (National Book Award for Fiction)

1973—Theophilus North (novel)

1975—Dies in sleep in Hamden, Connecticut on December 7. Buried in Hamden at Mt. Carmel Cemetery.

For more, visit thorntonwilder.com and thorntonwildersociety.org.

Experience Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth on stage at Seattle Rep from September 26–October 20, 2024.

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