Sewell Collins
American dramatist and artist (1876-1934)

Sewell Thomas Collins Jr. (September 1, 1876 – February 15, 1934) was an American dramatist, producer, and illustrator.
Biography
Collins was born in Denver, Colorado, to Sewell Thomas Collins, a banker, and Edith (Hughes) Collins. He attended the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, then Shattuck Military School, Minnesota, from which he graduated in 1893. Afterwards he was engaged as draughtsman in different positions in Chicago, and began studying at the Chicago Art Institute. During this time he was engaged during the day as a clerk, subsequently going with the Chicago Daily News as a reporter and cartoonist. He joined the staff of the Chicago Tribune in 1893, remaining with that paper for four years as a cartoonist, specializing in theatrical work. His work attracted the attention of William Randolph Hearst, who engaged him to come to New York, joining the staff of the Evening Journal. He remained in this position for one year, after which he became a freelance doing theatrical posters and general magazine work, with work appearing in periodicals such as Life and Collier's Weekly. He wrote several one-act sketches, including Awake at the Switch, Thirty Dollars, The Blue Danube, Fine Feathers, The Father, and Somebody.
“Sewell Collins” enters the record as american dramatist and artist (1876-1934). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sewell, Collins and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Sewell Collins” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sewell, Collins and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3480852. VIAF identifies the subject as 290773840. The Library of Congress control number is nr95047292. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1876, 1934 and 1893.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sewell Collins” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.