Ernst, Alice Henson, 1880-1980

Author, playwright, and teacher, with a special interest in the history of early theater of the Pacific Northwest.

Alice Henson Ernst, playwright, teacher, freelance writer, and reporter, was born September 3, 1880 in Washburne, Maine.

She received her B.A. degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Washington in 1912 and her M.A. in 1913. She also did graduate work at Radcliffe College and Yale University. From 1920 to 1923 she was an Associate Professor in English at the University of Washington and from 1924 to 1950 served as Associate Professor of English at the University of Oregon.

Ernst received recognition chiefly as a playwright of one-act plays, some of which were collected in High Country and Backstage in Xanadu . Her "Spring Sluicing" in High Country, for example, was a prize-winning play in the National Drama League contest, and was produced by the Portland Civic Theatre and other groups. In connection with her playwrighting, Ernst became interested in the history of the early theater of the Pacific Northwest resulting in the book Trouping in the Oregon Country . Her interest in primitive theater led her to study the masked ritual dances of Northwest Coast tribes and to the publication of several articles. She also published a major work, The Wolf Ritual of the Northwest Coast, which received recognition from critics and anthropologists in the United States and Europe. Alice Ernst died February 12, 1980.