Frances Taylor Patterson (July 10, 1893 – 1971) was an American writer and lecturer. She taught an early screenwriting class at Columbia University, wrote two textbooks on screenwriting, and several other books. She published essays, fiction, criticism, and poetry in major national magazines, especially Commonweal.
Early life and education Frances Taylor was born in Dobbs Ferry, New York, one of the five children of James Leo Taylor and Rose Helena Dennen Taylor. Her father was a postmaster and newspaper editor.1900 and 1910 United States Censuses, via Ancestry. She graduated from Trinity College in Washington, D.C., in 1914. Career In 1917, Patterson began teaching the Columbia University course titled "Photoplay Composition", when the original lecturer Victor Freeburg left for military service. She taught the course into the 1940s, for Columbia's Extension Program and as a home study course. She wrote two textbooks on the subject of screenwriting. She advocated for the value of original screenplays over adaptations from literary or theatrical texts, explaining that "the public will be enriched by seeing on the screen stories composed precisely for the camera, stories that take into consideration the mechanical aspect of talking pictures today."
Patterson wrote essays, fiction, poetry, and screenplays, but the only film produced from a Patterson screenplay was Broken Hearts (1926). "No matter what preconceived ideas you may have as to what Hollywood is like, when you get to that famous Mecca of the movies you are apt to find that it is quite otherwise," she wrote in 1931. "If you expect it to be fast, you will find that it is slow. If you expect fun, you will find plenty of hard work. The one constant among so many variables would seem to be the sun. You expect Hollywood to be sunny, and it is sunny."Patterson, Frances Taylor. "The Hollywood Scene" The National Board of Review Magazine (January 1931): 6-8.
Patterson was a member of the National Board of Review, and on the editorial staff of the board's magazine.Masthead, National Board of Review Magazine 11(1)(January 1936): 3; via Internet Archive. She lectured at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in a radio address to the National Council of Catholic Women. She was a member of the Edward MacDowell Association, and the Friends of the Cardinal Hayes Library. In 1959, she addressed the Rosary Society at St. Brigid's Church in Westbury.
Publications
Books Cinema Craftsmanship (1920) Scenario and Screen (1928) Motion Picture Continuities (1929, introduction and notes) White Wampum. The Story of Kateri Tekakwitha (1934, a biography) The Long Shadow (1957, a biography of John de Brébeuf, for young readers)
Poems, essays, and stories "Whom the Gods Destroy" and "Whiteface" (1917) "A New Art in an Old University" (1920, Photoplay)Patterson, Frances Taylor. “A New Art in an Old University” Photoplay (Jan. 1920): 65, 124, via Internet Archive. "Nanook of the North" (1922, The New Republic) "A Prize Paradox" (1925, The New York Times) "Metropolitan-Oats" (1926, Musical Courier) "Stall Talk" (1926, Musical Courier) "Ghostways" (1927, Scribner's Magazine) "The Sedulous Ape" (1927, The New Republic)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "The Sedulous Ape" The New Republic 51(657)(July 6, 1927): 177-179. via Internet Archive. "Music in the Movies" (1927, Commonweal) "On Being Young" (1928, Harper's Magazine) "Gesture" (1930, Scribner's Magazine) "Moth Dust" (1930, North American Review)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "Moth Dust." The North American Review (1821-1940) 230, no. 2 (1930): 237. "Will Hollywood Move to Broadway?" (1930, The New Republic) "The Hollywood Scene" (1931, The National Board of Review Magazine) "The End of Manhattan" (1933, Commonweal)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "The End of Manhattan" The Commonweal 18(21)(September 22, 1933): 487-488. via Internet Archive "The Praying Castle" (1933, Commonweal) "Grace Before Thought" (1933, North American Review) "On Reading the Smart Magazines" (1933, The American Spectator) "Toward Morning" (1934, Commonweal)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "Toward Morning" The Commonweal 19(20)(March 16, 1934): 546-548. "The Ball and the Cross" (1934, The Catholic World) "Strange Slumbering" (1934, North American Review) "Song of the Rood" (1935, Commonweal) "I Have Waited" (1936, America: A Catholic Review of the Week) "A Guide to the Study of the Screen Version of Jules Verne's Michael Strogoff" (1937, Photoplay Studies) "End of Rural Manhattan" (1937, Commonweal)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "End of Rural Manhattan" The Commonweal 26(16)(August 13, 1937): 383. via Internet Archive. "Bridges" (1937, The Catholic World) "The Author and Hollywood" (1937, North American Review) "The Twenty-Fifth of March" (1938, The Catholic World) "Sketch in Charcoal" (1938, Commonweal) "Music is Yours" (1938, Commonweal) "Nourishment for Virtue" (1939, Commonweal)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "Nourishment for Virtue" The Commonweal 30(23)(September 29, 1939): 516. via Internet Archive. "Bread and Cinemas" (1939, North American Review) "Table for One" (1940, Harper's Magazine) "Cold Harvest" (1940, Commonweal) "Harbor View" (1941, The Yale Review) "Skyscraper Range" (1941, America: A Catholic Review of the Week) "Chanty for a Pilot of the Ocean-Air" (1944, Queen's Quarterly)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "Chanty for a Pilot of the Ocean-Air (Verse)." Queen's Quarterly 51 (1944): 41. "Mountain at Midnight" (1948, Queen's Quarterly)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "Mountain at Midnight (Verse)." Queen's Quarterly 55 (1948): 140. "Greenling" (1949, Queen's Quarterly)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "Greenling (Verse)." Queen's Quarterly 56 (1949): 72. "Birds Above Niagara" (1950, Queen's Quarterly)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "Birds Above Niagara (Verse)." Queen's Quarterly 57 (1950): 33. "The Cloud of Witnesses" (1951, Queen's Quarterly)Patterson, Frances Taylor. "The Cloud of Witnesses (Verse)." Queen's Quarterly 58 (1951): 91.
Personal life Frances Taylor married educator Rowland A. Patterson in 1916. Her husband died in 1954. She lived in Brooklyn in her later years, and had a summer home in Mount Washington, Massachusetts. She died in 1971, in her late seventies. Her niece Maryrose Hanavan was the first woman to work as a traffic engineer in New York City. References
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