Montague Glass

Montague Marsden Glass (July 23, 1877 – February 3, 1934) was a British-American Jewish lawyer and writer of short stories, plays and film scripts.

Glass' transition from law to professional writing coincided with the emergence of the a pair of characters that would prove to be his most enduringly popular creations: Abe Potash and Mawrus Perlmutter.

"For ten years Mr. Glass was present almost daily at bankruptcy meetings, closing of titles to real estate, and conferences with reference to the entrance into or dissolution of co-partnerships.

One contemporary critic wrote: "His method is photographic and phonographic; that is, we get the life just as it stirs daily in the cloak and suit section of New York, and we get it through its own language.

Willa Cather wrote of the 1913 play Potash and Perlmutter, "[T]here is not an American in the piece and the only character who speaks conventional English is a Russian refugee.

"[7] In a later essay, Cather remarked that the stage dialect was accurate enough to satisfy a heavily Jewish audience that was fully familiar with the types being portrayed.

The literary journal The Bookman named the characters' debut collection, Potash & Perlmutter: Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures, a book of the month in August 1910.

"[7] She acknowledged, however, the play was "rather loosely made"[7] and the plot negligible, stating that it was "built upon the theory that people are more interested in character types and in live lines than in situations."

In part, changing attitudes about the portrayal of race and ethnicity have led to the near-total disappearance of dialect writing such as that featured in the Potash & Perlmutter stories.

In most of these adaptations, the roles of Abe Potash and Mawruss Perlmutter were played respectively by Barney Bernard and Alexander Carr, both of whom were lauded for their performances by Willa Cather.

[14] Glass also wrote many short stories and essays that were unrelated to the characters of Potash & Perlmutter, publishing several collections largely composed of such work: Y'Understand (1925), Lucky Numbers (1927), and You Can't Learn 'Em Nothin' (1930).