Sheldon Warren Cheney - Early Years

Early Years

Cheney grew up in Berkeley, California, in what he called “an atmosphere of literary ambition and activity.” His father, Warren Cheney, was an author of poetry and fiction, and served as editor of the popular California magazine, Overland Monthly. The younger Cheney had a passion for the art of bookmaking and, while studying architecture at Berkeley, founded a quarterly journal for designers and collectors of bookplates—his first foray into the field of magazine publishing. He graduated in 1908 with a bachelor’s degree in architecture. During his studies, Cheney also developed a love for theatre, inspired largely by performances of Greek drama he had attended at Berkeley’s outdoor Hearst Greek Theatre. In the years immediately following his graduation, Cheney married Maud Maurice Turner and found intermittent work as an art and theatre critic.

In 1913, Cheney began studying drama at Harvard University. While there he attended the Boston installation of New York City’s legendary Armory Show, an experience of modern art which fostered Cheney’s growing fascination with new art and theatre. He began to write on the subject of modernism, and his first book, The New Movement in the Theatre, was published in 1914. It was around this time that Cheney decided to create a new journal focused on progressive ideas in the theatre.