Mamie Flowers: The Bronze Melba

She was a concert and operatic soprano singer of the musical theater and variety stage; active in the 1890s to 1900s.

Known as the "Bronze Melba" (after Dame Nellie Melba, Australian soprano, whose name has been perpetuated through Melba toast). According to Ann Charters (author of 'Nobody' a bio on Bert Williams) she qualified for comparison to Melba "on the basis of a voice which some critics insisted could be heard on Tenth Avenue when she sang in Madison Square Garden."

Mrs. Flowers, as she first called herself, was formerly a concert artist with William Foote's African American Character Company, which toured Germany in 1891. She then joined Bob Cole's All-Star Stock Company (circa 1894), from which she was recruited as prima donna of John Isham's Octoroon Company (1895 - 1900). As a leading soprano of this show, she was first called Mme. Flowers (later Mme. Flower) and billed as "the greatest singer of her race" and "the only rival of the great Black Patti," a reference to Sissieretta Jones, star of the Black Patti Troubadours, who was the best known Black soprano of her time. Mme. Flower remained remained the star of The Octoroons (as the show was also called) for five years, during which she sang operatic solos and duets (usually with Fred Piper).

After leaving The Octoroons in 1899, Mme. Flower next performed with the Alabama Troubadours (1901) and, a few years later, with the Pekin Stock Company, at the Pekin Theater in Chicago when she performed in Queen of the Jungles, her last show of record.

Sources: The Bennington Vermont Evening Banner (February 1905); Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960 by Bernard L. Peterson