19th century Actor biography

Overview
Working in a small group (or alone if you prefer), you will compose a biography of a late 19 th
century actor or actress, paying attention to their personal life, career, and place in the theatre
world of the time. This is a period in which actors become national—and global—stars, when the
theatre is going from being a pastime to an entire industry. You are going not only to look at how
your subject succeeded and what they struggled with, but how they grew up with the industry
itself.
As opposed to a Wikipedia page or a Who’s Who summary, this should rely heavily on primary
sources and/or scholarship on the person (see below for suggested sources).
Doing it Alone vs. a Group
You are not going to be able to tell everything interesting about any individual actor listed below,
so I am hoping you do not try! I don’t care as much about cramming all the relevant details in
(like an Encyclopedia would) as I am in an overall narrative. As we discussed in class, a key aspect
of biographies is telling a particular story or charting an arc. For example:
 What is a particular window of the person’s life you want to focus on?, i.e.
o their early life
o their major hit or hits
o their love life
o what plays they were known for
o their legacy
o how they innovated in the business
o their friends
 What is a particular story you want to tell?
o how did they handle the pressure of their position in the industry?
o are there any controversies that they were a part of?
o any fascinating stories or incidents in their lives that need telling? and/or can you
tease out deeper meaning from an isolated incident in their life?
o what was their rise like? Did they fall?
o did they transition to film?

** Any of the above would be fitting subjects for your paper.
If you are working as a group, I would expect each of you to choose a different topic but turn it
in together as one document so that they all contribute to building a picture of the person’s life
and career. If you are working alone, still just focus on one of those elements and don’t try to do
it all.
The advantage of working as a group is that you can bounce ideas off of each other, share
sources, and generally find parts that might overlap.

Regardless, every individual needs to write 4 pages (more is fine, but not less). Please cite your
sources and quote where appropriate. And include a bibliography or works cited.

Suggested Actors
Sarah Bernhardt (the diva of divas)
Matilda Heron (problematic person, but groundbreaking actress of the 1850s)
Julia Marlowe (Shakespearean actress)
E.H. Sothern (her husband, also acted w/ Matilda Heron)
James O’Neill (father of Eugene)
Bert Williams and/or George Walker (two black vaudevillians who changed the industry—you
can write about their careers as its own thing)
Georgie Drew Barrymore (and anyone in the Drew or Barrymore family)
Joseph Jefferson (major figure, succeeded Edwin Booth)
Ada Rehan (one of the biggest stars of her day)
Adah Isaacs Menken (a risqué but very popular actress. And poet)
Maxine Elliott (originally meant to support Rehan, her career surged)
Maude Adams (a gay icon and the first Peter Pan)
Sissieretta Jones (famous black opera singer)
Georgia Cayvan (first actress to wear a glass dress, for what that’s worth)
Fanny Davenport (American rival of Bernhardt)
John Wilkes Booth (a bit earlier, but why not?)
Steele MacKaye (more tech person, but really innovative)
Harry Houdini (focusing on his vaudeville and pre-super-fame)
Sam Lucas (black actor who started in blackface but broke out and did serious work)
Mae West (the one to rule them all)

Sources
These are mostly the same as the first project, but I encourage you to explore different ones and
see what’s out there. There is a LOT of random online stuff about these actors, and I would far
prefer to see you citing primary sources (stuff from the actors’ lifetimes) or something scholarly.
The deeper your research, the better your paper will be.

Mostly Newspapers
America’s Historical Newspapers
(see https://persistent.library.nyu.edu/arch/NYU02272)
This is a database of newspaper articles, mostly in the nineteenth century.
Chronicling America
(https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/)
The Library of Congress’ collection of historic newspapers (has some stuff that the other
newspaper databases does not). This is what we used to look at Personals.

Gale Primary Sources 
(https://persistent.library.nyu.edu/arch/NYU04736)
Tons of stuff here, although a bit patchy. There is a huge emphasis on law resourced.
Google Books 
(books.google.com)
If you run a search, then go to the drop-down menu “Any Time,” you can limit the search for the
19 th century. Searching for addresses and theatre names will reveal a variety of documents from
the period. You can also select a custom date range, i.e. 1890-1920. There will be a lot here on
your subject.
North American Theatre Online (NATO) 
(https://persistent.library.nyu.edu/arch/NYU02440)
This is a tertiary source of tertiary sources! Essentially, it has a great deal of encyclopedic and
sources and other reference works about the entire history of the American and Canadian
theatres. You can get some basic, albeit sometimes incomplete, info on actors, actresses, plays,
and theatres. A key resource within the database of Clifford O’Dell’s Annals of the New York Stage,
which is a digitized copy of a 15-volume chronicle of most everything every major theatre did in
NYC until the 1930s (when he compiled it). Some of this database is intuitive and easy to use,
sometimes it’s disorganized. If you’re confused about what a sources is, how to maximize your
use of it, or whatever, lmk.
New York Public Library Digital Collections 
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/
You’re likely to find pictures of theatres and actors here. How actors presents themselves to the
public is—and was—key to maintaining their image.

Museum of the City of NY
(https://collections.mcny.org/)
A more eclectic, if spotty collection of images, playbills, etc.
The Ohio State University’s Online Collections
(https://library.osu.edu/tri/media)
Check out the “Actress Scrapbook” collections for great and rare photos of actresses and their
roles.

Seconday/Scholarly Sources

Ebook Central 
(https://persistent.library.nyu.edu/arch/NYU00541)
What began as a more boutique database is now a powerhouse of fully searchable scholarly
books. The only drawback is that some books have a limit to what can be downloaded.
JSTOR
(https://persistent.library.nyu.edu/arch/NYU01695)

Still the gold standard of scholarly resources. It has an emphasis on articles.
ProjectMuse
(https://persistent.library.nyu.edu/arch/NYU01036)
The “other” JSTOR. This has less than its rival, but is more up-to-date. Also, books.