The long-known results of Schreier-Eilenberg-Mac Lane on group extensions a
re raised to a categorical level, for the classification and construction o
f the manifold of all graded monoidal categories, the type being given grou
p Gamma with I-component a given monoidal category. Explicit application is
made to the classification of strongly graded bialgebras over commutative
rings, (C) 2001 Academic Press.