Isaacs, Edith Juliet

ISAACS, EDITH JULIET (1878–1956), editor of Theater Arts magazine from 1919 to 1945. Isaacs tried to make American theatergoers aware of people and movements in the European theater and to make them familiar with the London Old Vic and the Moscow Art Theater. She printed early plays by Eugene O'Neill, Thornton Wilder, and others, and work by American designers. Her magazine also encouraged the growth of pioneer progressive groups. Isaacs was active in the Federal Theater Project and supported black culture. She was married to LEWIS MONTEFIORE ISAACS (1877–1944), a real estate lawyer and accomplished musician who was one of the founders of the Musicians Foundation of New York and the MacDowell Artists Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Books she edited include Theater: Essays on the Arts of the Theater (1927); Plays of American Life and Fantasy (1929); and Architecture for the New Theater (1935). She wrote The Negro in the American Theater (1947).