Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland née Baker, was an American journalist, author and playwright.
Background
A sixth-generation Bostonian, Sutherland was born on September 15, 1855, at Cambridge to James and Rachael Arnold Greenleaf Baker. Sutherland began her education at age three, around the time of her father"s death, attending schools in Boston and later Geneva, Switzerland.
Career
While still in her teens she began submitting works to national publications and was among the first to be awarded a prize from the fledgling Saint Nicholas Magazine for her essay "What is a Gentleman?". Sutherland worked for over a decade as an editorial writer and drama critic for several Boston newspapers before she began publishing (as Dorothy Lundt) a series of one-act plays, of which Po" White Trash and Other One Acting Plays, produced in 1899, was probably her best known. Sutherland’s early works were often sketches about the struggles of class and race in America.
Sutherland collaborated with Charles King (general) on the military play Fort
Frayne and with Booth Tarkington on Monsieur Beaucaire. Their most successful play,The Road to Yesterday, written in 1906, became the genesis for Victor Herbert"s 1924 operetta The Dream Girl.
Evelyn Greenleaf Sutherland died at her Boston home on December 24, 1908 from burns she suffered when her gown brushed up against a gas stove and caught fire.