Harry Delf wrote The Family Upstairs during the early part of the 1920's. It was produced and staged at the Gaiety Theater on 46th and Broadway in the year 1925. The play was a comic exploration of the dynamics of middle class family life in New York City.
He wrote about what he knew, which was not the New York of high society and parties that comes to mind when we envision the roaring Twenties. It wasn't the wealthy and powerful New York of Riverside Drive, Park or Fifth Avenues; nor was it the down and out street New York of Chaplin's little tramp or Keaton's lovable drifter characters. He wrote about the New York of the Bronx, Harlem, West End and the pockets of the city where families of moderate middle class means lived. In 1925 writing about a middle class family was a novel concept to the entertainment world both because it was about the middle class and because it was about the family.
He wrote several plays about this subject matter that all had the word Family in their titles and became known as the "Family Series." Besides The Family Upstairs he wrote Too Much Family, The Family Picnic, The Family Wedding and a few others.
