George Bernard Shaw decided to write Mrs. Warren's Profession when Beatrice Webb suggested he write a play about a realistic woman. Beatrice was an English sociologist, historian, and economist who co-founded the London School of Economics and Political Science with Shaw. Along with her husband Sidney, who was the Baron of of Passfield, she founded the weekly political publication New Statesman in 1913. She is credited with coining the term "collective bargaining," the negotiation of working conditions between employers and employees.