Kicha's photos with the keyword: Vaudevillian

British Nobility Balk At Mixed-Race American Actress: The Story of Marion Smart When Britain’s Prince Harry’s engagement to actress Meghan Markle became public, some negative reactions suggested that racism and class snobbery still persist among the British upper crust. According to news reports, Markle, whose mother is African-American and father is white, describes herself as a “strong, confident mixed-race woman.” Just such a woman caused a stir in England back in 1903, and the ripples reached as far as Cincinnati. Marion Smart visited Cincinnati frequently as an actress and singer with the Smart Set troupe. This all-African American ensemble got top billing at Cincinnati’s hottest theaters: Heuck’s, on Vine between Twelfth and Thirteenth; Robinson Opera House at Ninth and Plum; and The Walnut, on Walnut Street between Sixth and Seventh. Variously described as “pretty,” “dashing” and possessed of a “most handsome form and face,” Marion Smart was what was then known as an octoroon, meaning that she was one-eighth black. In other words, one of her eight great-grandparents was African American. Under the “one drop” standard in place at the time, Marion was considered “colored.” The Cincinnati Enquirer [25 February 1904] claimed she could easily pass as white: “Miss Smart is almost white. It would require a second glance to discover any trace of her Ethiopian origin.” Most news reports claim that she was a Louisiana native, but she consistently told census-takers that her mother was from England and her father from New York, where she was born at Utica in 1884. In the summer of 1903, Marion sailed to England with an all-African American minstrel show headed by Bert Williams and George Walker, among the most celebrated proponents of this much-derided theatrical genre. The troupe occupied rooms in the very posh Hotel Cecil and performed at the Shaftesbury Theatre in central London. Among her new fans, Marion attracted the attention of the son of an English Lord. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer: “This young scion of British nobility for a time contented himself with a nightly attendance at the London theater where the Afro-American entertainers were holding the boards. Subsequently he sought an introduction, and through a business attaché of the theater became acquainted with Miss Smart, or Marion Henry, as she was known on the London playbills. From that time on the young Englishman was the most devoted admirer of the colored singer and entertained her lavishly at the swagger Cecil.” For almost a month, Marion’s devotee followed her everywhere and rained gifts of jewelry upon her. It all ended when Marion was visited backstage by a representative of the British Foreign Office who informed her that she was being deported, immediately, on the next steamer to America. “She demurred at first, but changed her mind when transportation and a few thousand-pound notes on the Bank of England were thrust into her hand. It developed that the father of the prospective heir to an earldom had learned of his infatuation for the colored actress and had quietly invoked the aid of the Foreign Office.” Marion returned to the United States and joined the Smart Set troupe, which brought her to Cincinnati, where she told her tale to a Cincinnati reporter. She made sure to add her opinion to the Enquirer story, contrasting life for African Americans here and in Europe: “She says that prejudice against the colored race in England is nothing like it is in America and that it is more than likely that nearly half of the Williams and Walker company that went over about a year ago are so well established in England it is doubtful they will ever return to this country.” Marion Smart’s career lasted just a year or so following her 1904 visit to Cincinnati. She retired from the stage at the age of 21 when she married Moses C. Moore, the wealthiest African American in Dayton, Ohio. Moore owned a stable of fine racing horses, a Dayton hotel that served a black clientele, and was an early investor in a Negro League baseball team. In 1909, Moore opened Dahomey Park, described by the Indianapolis Freeman [6 March 1909] as: “ . . . a Colored pleasure park for Colored people, owned and operated exclusively by Colored financiers and managers.” Although the park remained open for only a couple of years, it attracted national news coverage. The name, Dahomey Park, was proposed by Marion Moore as a nod to “In Dahomey: A Negro Musical Comedy” the first full-length musical written and performed by African Americans at a major Broadway house. The stars of “In Dahomey” were Marion Moore’s former employers, Bert Williams and George Walker. Moses Moore died in 1927 and Marion remarried a building contractor named Carl Anderson. She was active in charitable causes, notably founding a day nursery. Marion died in 1954, aged 69, and is buried in Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum, next to Moses Moore. Source: The Dayton Herald (Dec. 1905); Cincinnati Curiosities by Greg Hand (Bill Stolz, Archivist at Wright State University

Here she appears in costume for a play she co-produced, Midnight Steppers from 1930. Today Gertrude is mainly remembered as a rival for the affections of Bessie Smith's husband, Jack Gee, a situation that caused a violent reaction from the ever volatile Bessie. In 1921, however, Gertrude was one of the hottest properties in show business. Gertrude Saunders while her greatest fame and recognition came from being the original star of Shuffle Along , the groundbreaking musical and theatrical production by Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, Flournoy Mille, and Aubrey Lyles in 1921, which some cite as launching the Harlem Renaissance, Gertrude Saunders went on to continue her varied show-business career in motion pictures, as well as with live stage performances. Born on August 25, 1903, in North Carolina, Saunders was still a teenager at the time she left studies at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, to tour with stage and vaudeville entertainer and producer Billy King as a featured singer and comedienne, where her performances turned a number of his songs into hits. Saunders also starred in another King production in 1919, Over the Top , which dramatized the state of African Americans at the time of the Paris Peace Conference and presaged other Harlem Renaissance efforts to stage serious theatrical works and music revues. After Saunders was replaced by Florence Mills as the star of Shuffle Along , she continued to work in other revues during the 1920s and '30s, including one financed by Bessie Smith's husband Jack Gee in 1929, which led to a fight with Smith. After suffering a nervous breakdown and returning to her home in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1931 to recuperate, Saunders resumed performing in such revues as Red Hot Mama during the 1930s. Saunders was also highly recognized for her passion and style of performing the Charleston famous during the Harlem Renaissance period and singing Sweet Georgia Brown composed by musicians Maceo Pinkard and Ben Bernie for the musical show Runnin Wild on Broadway. She appeared in several films in the 1940s, including Sepia Cinderella and in 1943 the Broadway production of Run, Little Chillun . Saunders was honored by the Negro Actors Guild of America in 1964 in New York City, the benevolent organization for African American entertainers. Gertrude C. Saunders, a trailblazing entertainer, died on April 1, 1991, in Beverly, Massachusetts. She was eighty-seven. Sources: Florence Mills: Harlem Jazz Queen by By Bill Egan; Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era edited by Lean'tin L. Bracks, Jessie Carney Smith; BlackPast by Otis Alexander; NYPL Digital Collections

Emma Louise along with her older sister Anna Madah (not pictured) were pioneers of African American Musical Theater in the United States. The Hyers Sisters made their public debut in their hometown of Sacramento, California in 1867 and began touring extensively in the early 1870s to wide acclaim. This is an early photograph of Emma Louise (born circa 1857), which was spotted in an album consisting mostly of theatrical portrait photographs from San Francisco dating from the 1870s and 1880s. Emma Louise was a contralto, her sister a soprano, and over their long careers they collaborated with notable African American artists like Billy Kersands, Pauline Hopkins, and Sam Lucas on a string of successful productions. Source: Harvard Theatre Collection

The young Miss is a native of Detroit, Michigan. She was born the 3rd of May, 1880. At an early age little Bessie showed market talent for the stage, and being of an apt and musical family, she was naturally encouraged in her natural vocation. At the age of three she participated in a concert in which she sang that ever popular song "Peek-a-boo," at that she had to be placed on a stool in order to be seen by the audience. After that from time to time she appeared in home talent concerts, until finally her marked advancement demanded recognition and in consequence of that she had the pleasure of holding the boards for eight weeks at the Wonderland Theater, (in Detroit) which speaks for itself. At that time she was only five years of age. At the end of this unprecedented engagement she was put in school, and at the same time she was given a musical education by her mother, (Georgie E Gillam, a very accomplished pianist). After receiving a good school education and the art of music, she was still haunted by the desire to become an actress, to that event she was fortunate in receiving an engagement in connection with her brother, (Harry L Gillam), from the Georgia University Graduates, under the direction of J. Edward George. They started on the road on Dec. 16, 1895, to tour the country. After a successful tour of thirty weeks, she returned home and had to remain home for a long while to patch up a sprained ankle received while in the act of performing. After taking a good rest she rejoined her brother at Eureka, Kansas on Dec. 10, 1897, to work as a team with the Nashville Students and P.T. Wright's Colored Comedy Co. She is receiving praise from press and public for her artistic rendition of coon songs and refined dancing. Being a young lady she has a bright future and we look forward to see her hold positions among the many bright lights now lighting the dark pathway on to the road of success for the colored race. Source: Indianapolis Freeman (April 9, 1898) issue

Historically, some of the most visible queer people in America have been performers, particularly male and female impersonators. On the vaudeville and variety stages of the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, performers that transgressed the gender binary were a common sight. For the most popular among them — people like Ella Wesner, Annie Hindle, and Julian Eltinge — doing drag could be a lucrative and fame-making endeavor. Eltinge, for instance, published three different magazines with his name on them, including “Julian Eltinge's Magazine of Beauty Hints and Tips,” which offered beauty advice and sold Eltinge-branded products to women. Wesner was so famous that she was hired by cigarette and champagne companies to hock their wares from the stage — the Little Beauties Cigarette company even went so far as to produce promotional cards featuring Wesner smoking their products. Not all of these performers were queer. For some, drag was simply a business; Eltinge, for example, cultivated the masculine public persona of a good college boy who just happened to discover he was skilled at female impersonation (although rumors dogged the bachelor Eltinge for his entire career). But life on the stage did offer some particular inducements for queer people: living on the road could be a way to avoid prying eyes, the police, or one’s family; fame could provide a measure of protection to those who transgressed gender norms off the stage as well; and traveling from city to city allowed them to forge connections with nascent queer communities around the country. By virtue of their work, we have more complete records of their lives than we do of other Victorian- and Progressive-era gender non-conforming folks. Yet even some of the most famous male and female impersonators of their time have been mostly forgotten today, even by historians — particularly performers of color. So it is with Florence Hines, a Black singer and drag king who got her start on the stage sometime around 1891, when she began to receive particular notice for her performances with Sam T. Jack’s Creole Burlesque. When the show came to Paterson, NJ, on November 23, 1891, “hundreds were turned away from the doorway” before the Creole Burlesque was even scheduled to take the stage, according to the Paterson Daily Caller. In their review, they called out Hines in particular for being an “excellent male impersonator.” The Creole Burlesque was a standard minstrel show, featuring all Black performers, led by a white manager, giving skits, songs, and scenes that featured standard variety acts (everything from clog dancing to drag) set in a pre-Civil War Southern plantation fantasy. But within a few years, Sam T. Jack would launch The Creole Show, an important milestone in Black performance in America. For the first time, an all-Black revue was presented as a modern, staged performance — not as an “authentic” recreation of Black life. According to Whiting Up, a history of white face entertainment by Black theater historian Marvin McAllister, The Creole Show was “a major outlet for Black artists interested in… developing a comedic tradition that was racially grounded but not riddled with stereotyping.” In another important departure from tradition, instead of hiring a man to play the traditional lead role of interlocutor or master of ceremonies, Sam T. Jack hired Florence Hines. As a drag king, Hines performed a routine that made mock of the “dandy” — flashy, modern, young men who drank and dated openly, and wore the latest clothes. One of her most famous numbers was “Hi Waiter! A Dozen More Bottles,” whose first verse went: Lovely woman was made to be loved, To be fondled and courted and kissed; And the fellows who’ve never made love to a girl, Well they don’t know what fun they have missed. I’m a fellow, who’s up on the times, Just the boy for a lark or a spree There’s a chap that’s dead stuck on women and wine, You can bet your old boots that it’s me. Many white drag kings of the day also performed this song, and similar dandy characters. For these performers, the dandy was a way to needle the men in the audience. But for Black performers, taking on a dandy role was also a way of resisting degraded depictions of Black people that were common on stage at the time. As Kathleen B. Casey wrote in The Prettiest Girl on the Stage is a Man, “when worn by a Black performer, the tuxedo with tails, cane, cape and a top hat countered the image of the ragged, shoeless plantation slave.” Thus, Hines made a natural choice for a show that wanted to show an entirely new kind of Black performance. By 1904, The Indianapolis Freeman would report that Hines “commanded the largest salary paid to a colored female performer.” In their book, Out of Sight: The Rise of African American Popular Music, 1889-1895, Lynn Abott and Doug Seroff wrote that “Hines’s male impersonations provided the standard against which African American comediennes were compared for decades.” Yet today, little is known about Hines. It is impossible to establish a place or date of her birth. Unlike her white counterparts, Hines seems not to have been profiled in major newspapers of her day, nor did she have promotional products with her face on them, or even posters. How she got her start on the stage is unknown. Her time in the Creole Show provides one of the few insights into her life off the stage: While in Ohio in 1892, Hines got into a fight with one of her co-stars, a singer named Marie Roberts. The Cincinnati Enquirer covered the incident with a healthy dose implication that Hines and Roberts were lovers, writing “the utmost intimacy has existed between the two women for the past year, their marked devotion being not only noticeable but a subject of comment among their associates on the stage.” Hines’s career seems to have lasted about 15 years — at least, her career as a male impersonator did. According to a letter to the editor written by a traveling vaudevillian from the Famous Georgia Minstrels, which was published in The Chicago Defender in 1920 (the year Prohibition was enacted), Hines became a preacher, now that her home city of Salem, Oregon had gone dry. “She would be pleased to hear from old friends,” the letter write wrote. But three years later, the Defender would publish a short column about Hines, “recognized as the greatest male impersonator of all times and all races,” in which they wrote that she had been paralyzed and an invalid since 1906. The final mention of Hines that I can find is also from the Defender, who carried a letter on March 22, 1924, from a Santa Clara, California woman named Nunnie Williams, saying “My mother was Florence Hines… called by many the mother of the Colored show business… she died on March 7th and was buried in Santa Clara cemetery on the 10th.” Today, Florence Hines deserves to stand in the long line of queer, Black, stud performers, from Gladys Bentley all the way up to Lena Waithe, whose incredible talent has won them acclaim from audiences all too ready to dismiss them for their race, their gender, and their queerness. Sources: themstory: This Black Drag King Was Once Known As the Greatest Male Impersonator of All Time Florence Hines deserves recognition in the long line of queer, Black, stud performers, from Gladys Bentley to Lena Waithe, article written by Hugh Ryan (June 2018)

Ernest Hogan, (1860-1909), a minstrel show and vaudeville entertainer and songwriter, was born Reuben Crowder (or Crowdus) in the African American "Shake Rag" district of Bowling Green, Kentucky. Nothing is known of his family or early youth, but by his early teens he was supporting himself as an actor, singer, dancer, and comedian. He appeared with a traveling "Tom show"--a repertory company presenting Uncle Tom's Cabin on the road--as a young child, and he was a member of such traveling tent shows as Pringle's Georgia Minstrels in his middle teens. A versatile youth, he excelled in all aspects of minstrelsy, and by 1891 he had found a distinct theatrical identity. In about that year he took the stage name of Hogan because the Irish were the most successful comedians of the time, and with a partner founded a company of his own, Hogan and Eden's Minstrels, in Chicago. Within a few years he graduated from stylized minstrel acts and found success in solo performances in New York City vaudeville. A singer, improvisational dancer, and comic with his own distinctive style, Hogan was described by poet James Weldon Johnson as "expansive, jolly, radiating infectious good humor, provoking laughter merely by the changing expressions of his mobile face." In 1895 Hogan published his first song, "La Pas Ma La," based on a comic dance step he had created as the "pasmala" while still with the Pringle troupe. Featuring a jerky hop forward followed by three quick backward steps, it met with a warm reception in the African American community. The next year, however, Hogan became a national star with the song for which he was to be known for the rest of his life, "All Coons Look Alike to Me." Adapted from a song he had heard in a bar in Chicago and written for the white show Widow Jones, it was the hit of the season, ultimately selling over a million copies. The word "coon" was not yet universally heard as a racial slur--as late as 1920 the Victor record company's catalog defined "coon song" as an "up-to-date comic song in Negro dialect"--but the image of African Americans as licentious and lazy as presented in the popular genre was becoming socially unacceptable by the end of the century, and Hogan was widely criticized among blacks for the song, which, according to Arnold Shaw, "did not embody the prejudicial stereotype implied by its title" (p. 41). Though the song made him famous and paid him well, he was to have mixed feelings about his association with it for the rest of his life. With this sensational hit to his credit, Hogan quickly became one of the country's leading black entertainers. In 1897 he was the comedy star and master of ceremonies of Black Patti's Troubadours, for which he wrote some of the music and all of the comedy routines. The next year he played the leading role and edited the script of Clorindy: or the Origin of the Cakewalk, the first African American musical to appear in a Broadway theater. With music by noted composer Will Marion Cook and script by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, it ran the entire summer season and was a major breakthrough for African Americans in show business. Following this triumph, Hogan returned to Black Patti, billed as "The Unbleached American," for a season, and after that began a tour of Australia and Hawaii with Curtis's Afro-American Minstrels. Costarring with minstrel Billy McClain in My Friend from Georgia, a musical comedy that he cowrote, he was warmly received throughout the run. In 1900 Hogan worked with youthful singer Mattie Wilkes, fifteen years of age at the time, in The Military Man in New York City. He and Wilkes were reportedly married for a short time. Hogan was said to have been later married to a woman named Louise (maiden name unreported), who worked with him in organizing concerts in New York City in 1905. The dates of these marriages are unrecorded, and there were no children from either. Hogan's activities extended beyond the writing and performing for which he was famous. In 1901 he was one of one of the first African Americans to buy a home in New York City's Harlem. On returning from his Hawaiian tour he and his costar, Billy McClain, organized the Smart Set Company, a highly successful black road show, which produced Enchantment in 1902. In 1905 he and his wife Louise established an orchestra called the Memphis (or Nashville) Students who presented a "syncopated music concert" at Hammerstein's Victoria Theater on Broadway that ran for a hundred performances and went on to tour Europe as the Tennessee Students. That year he starred in a musical comedy considered by many to be his crowning achievement, Rufus Rastus, for which he wrote the script and cowrote the music. Immensely popular, it toured the country for two years after its successful New York run. In 1907 he and comedian Bert Williams were instrumental in the formation of the Colored Actors' Beneficial Association, a professional union for black performers. During that year Hogan prepared his last musical vehicle, The Oyster Man, but fell ill with tuberculosis and collapsed during a performance. The troupe was dissolved when he withdrew in March 1908, and Hogan died the next year in Lakewood, New Jersey. The most popular African American entertainer of his time and the first to star in a Broadway production in New York City, Ernest Hogan was a transitional performer whose career spanned minstrelsy, vaudeville, and musical theater. He was a major influence in popularizing the emerging musical styles. He is credited with coining the term "ragtime" for the strongly syncopated rhythm that became the pop-music rage of the 1890s, and his songs were the first to feature the word "rag" on their sheet music. Hogan did much to bring African American music styles to a larger audience and to open the doors of mainstream American theater to later African American performers. Sources: Alexander's Magazine. v.001 (1905-06 edition); American National Biography by Dennis Wepman

Jennie Scheper Haston, Pioneer Stage Star, Dies Suddenly in New York, Jennie (Scheper) Haston, born in Washington, D.C., 1878, retired theatrical star who was among the pioneer colored entertainers abroad, died at Harlem Hospital Saturday where she had been taken three hours before, following a paralytic stroke. While playing under the name of Jennie Scheper, she once made a command appearance before the czar of Russia. She went abroad in 1909 and toured all of Europe up to the outbreak of WWI in 1914. She served as an entertainer and did Red Cross work among the American doughboys. She appeared on the continent with the vaudeville team of Rastus and Banks as a singer and dancer. Later she appeared in her own act in Paris and later became a drummer and organized a female band which appeared with great success at the Cafe Cecil, in Paris and also Madrid and London. After her marriage to A.A. Haston, she made her headquarters in London and their home was always open to American Negro performers who came to that city. Her husband was for twenty years manager for the Versatile Three, which act was for many years the most prominent colored act in the British Empire. She gave up her own stage career to serve as her husband's secretary and his success was in a large measure due to her ability in this direction. In infrequent appearances in this country she played in several of the shows produced by the late J. Leubrie Hill, and her last New York appearance was with one of these shows at the Lafayette Theatre. The deceased was known throughout the profession for her big-heartedness and often aided financially performers of her race who were stranded. She made a hobby of collecting theatrical programs and souvenirs of all kinds that related to the stage and has a valuable collection of things of this kind. Funeral services were from the chapel of Henry W. Payne , 233 Lenox Avenue, on Tuesday and burial was in the Frederick Douglass Cemetery, Staten Island. Besides her husband, several distant relatives in Washington, DC., her native home, survive. Photo: Leslie's Weekly Newspaper (July 22, 1897) Obit: The New York Age (January 30, 1937)

A 1922 publicity photo of Gertrude Saunders, born on August 25, 1903 in North Carolina. She was an actress, known for Big Timers (1945), Sepia Cinderella (1947) and The Toy Wife (1938). She died in April 1991 in Beverly, Massachusetts. Saunders is also infamously known for her affair with Empress of the Blues , Bessie Smith's husband, Jack Gee. Smith had given her husband money to produce a show for her. Jack threw together as cheap a production as possible for Bessie and decided to use the remainder of the money for personal gain—not to enrich himself financially, but to win the heart of Gertrude Saunders, a singer of striking looks and impressive past accomplishments. Ms. Saunders had starred successfully in the title role of Irvin C. Miller’s Red Hot Mama show during the 1926 season, and headed the cast of various subsequent editions, but her most successful shows had been Liza and the 1921 Sissle and Blake hit, Shuffle Along (which included Josephine Baker in the chorus line). The latter production would probably have secured Ms. Saunders’ stage future, but she made a fateful decision and allowed herself to be lured away from the original cast by an offer that never materialized. Gertrude Saunders’ bad move opened the door for the ultimate black beauty of the day, Florence Mills, who took over the role and was such a hit that she became the toast of Broadway. Ms. Mills career was cut short in November,1927, when she died at the age of 35, but the bright spotlight Gertrude Saunders so foolishly relinquished was never restored to her. It is not known when Jack’s relationship with Ms. Saunders began, but Bessie's niece Ruby Walker Smith, thought it had gone on for some time before Jack produced her show, and that it accounted for some of his “hunting” trips. Gertrude Saunders was the antithesis of Bessie Smith, their personalities and looks contrasted sharply: Gertrude’s complexion was light, her hair long and her disposition gentle. She was also slim and quite a bit younger than Bessie. The artistic gap that separated the two was equally wide: Gertrude Saunders relied more on her looks than on her voice. “She was the opposite of Bessie,” said Ruby (Bessie's niece), making no secret of her disdain. “She had light skin and long curly 'good' hair and a gorgeous figure, and she knew it. In fact, she thought her shit didn’t stink." In a 1971 author Jack Albertson interviewed Ms. Saunders asking her if she had known that three thousand dollars of Bessie’s money went to back her show. “No,” she replied, emphatically, “but Jack could very well have put the money in my show without telling Bessie. Naturally he wouldn’t tell me if it was her money, he’d want to act like a big shot.” Which, of course, was exactly what he was doing. “I don’t know how he thought he could get away with it,” said Ruby, “but he wasn’t never too bright and he didn’t know anything about show business. He should have known that you can’t keep something like that a secret, not with all them blabbermouths around. His show only lasted about five or six months, then it folded up. He couldn't get enough bookings. And,” she added acerbically, “his star wasn’t strong enough to hold it up.” Bessie and Gertrude had two run-ins, the second left Gertrude beaten and bloody on a sidewalk and Bessie charged with assault. Afterwards, Gertrude vowed never to have anything to do with Jack again. Although she denied it, word was that she did not keep her vow. Source: Bessie, by Jack Albertson; IMD; Frank Driggs Collection

Inez Clough was born on March 1, 1873 in Worcester, Massachusetts. And began her career in 1896, as a concert singer in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the late 1890s, she toured with John Isham's Oriental American Company around the United States and in Europe. After performing in England for ten years she returned to the United States, and began to appear in music halls before joining the Williams and Walker company. With George Walker and Bert Williams, she appeared in In Dahomey in 1902, In Abyssinia in 1906, and Bandana Land in 1907. She worked with another legendary team in black musicals when she joined the cast of Shoo Fly Regiment, written by James Weldon Johnson and his brother J. Rosamond Johnson and produced by Bob Cole. One of her greatest triumphs as a serious actress was in a series of plays presented under the title Three Plays for a Negro Theatre on April 5, 1917, at the Garden Theatre in Madison Square Garden. The plays, The Rider of Dreams, Granny Maumee, and Simon the Cyrenian, were written by white playwright Ridgely Torrence, and the evening was noteworthy because it was one of the earliest attempts to present black actors instead of white actors in plays dealing with the black experience. That same year she was cited as one of the ten most distinguished performers on the New York Stage. She was also one of the original members of the Lafayette Players, founded by Anita Bush. Many of the acting ensemble were among the casts of the Ridgely Torrence one-acts. During the 1920s, Clough appeared in the landmark musical Shuffle Along by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake and its successor, The Chocolate Dandies. She also appeared in the films Easy Money (1922), Secret Sorrow (1921), and The Gunsaulus Mystery (1921). She died of peritonitis on November 24, 1933 in Cook County Hospital in Chicago after a long illness. She had been married to Henry Hogan at the time of her death. Inez Clough was instrumental in establishing acting in the legitimate theatre as a possible option for African Americans. Bio: 'African American Concert Dance: The Harlem Renaissance and Beyond' by John O Perpener Photo: Crisis Magazine (1912) edition

Aida Overton Walker (1880-1914), dazzled early 20th century theater audiences with her original dance routines, her enchanting singing voice, and her penchant for elegant costumes. One of the premiere African American women artists of the turn of the century, she popularized the cakewalk and introduced it to English society. In addition to her attractive stage persona and highly acclaimed performances, she won the hearts of black entertainers for numerous benefit performances near the end of her tragically short career and for her cultivation of younger women performers. She was, in the words of the New York Age's Lester Walton, the exponent of "clean, refined artistic entertainment." Born in New York City, where she gained an education and considerable musical training. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined John Isham's Octoroons, one of the most influential black touring groups of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of the Black Patti Troubadours. Although the show consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising soubrettes of her day. In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, and appeared in all of their shows—The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907). Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Overton married and before long became one of the most admired and elegant African American couples on stage. While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the "funniest man in America," Aida quickly became an indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a positive, strong image of black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the plantation image of black women as plump mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in the shows; when In Dahomey was moved to England, Aida proved to be one of the strongest attractions. Society women invited her to their homes for private lessons in the exotic cakewalk that the Walkers had included in the show. After two seasons in England, the company returned to the United States in 1904, and it was Aida who was featured in a New York Herald interview about their tour. At times Walker asked his wife to interpret dances made famous by other performers—one example being the "Salome" dance that took Broadway by storm in the early 1900s—which she did with uneven success. After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida's career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Initially Walker returned to his boyhood home of Lawrence, Kansas, where his mother took care of him. In his absence, Aida took over many of his songs and dances to keep the company together. In early 1909, however, Bandanna Land was forced to close, and Aida temporarily retired from stage work to care for her husband, now clearly seriously ill. No doubt recognizing that he likely would not recover and that she alone could support the family, she returned to the stage in Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson's Red Moon in autumn 1909, and she joined the Smart Set Company in 1910. Aida also began touring the vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after Walker's death in January 1911, Aida signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-black traveling show. Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. As early as 1908, she had begun organizing benefits to aid such institutions as the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls, and after her contract with S. H. Dudley expired, she devoted more of her energy to such projects, which allowed her to remain in New York. She also took an interest in developing the talents of younger women in the profession, hoping to pass along her vision of black performance as refined and elegant. She produced shows for two such female groups in 1913 and 1914—the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls. She encouraged them to work up original dance numbers and insisted that they don stylish costumes on stage. When Aida Overton Walker died suddenly of kidney failure on October 11, 1914, the African American entertainment community in New York went into deep mourning. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page, and hundreds of shocked entertainers descended on her residence to confirm a story they hoped was untrue. Walker left behind a legacy of polished performance and model professionalism. Her demand for respect and her generosity made her a beloved figure in African American theater circles. Sources: Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890-1915. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, Thomas L Riis; Introducing Bert Williams by Camille F. Forbes, Luther S. White, Photographer; James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

Mamie Emerson was an entertainer both in the States and abroad during the vaudeville era with performances in the early 1900s from "Sons of Ham" starring Williams and Walker and "Rufus Rastus" starring Ernest Hogan and "The Smart Set." In the June 8th, 1916 edition of the New York Age it announced that Mamie Emerson Logan died on May 6th in London. Funeral arrangements were made by a friend and fellow vaudevillian Belle Davis-Whaley. She was buried on May 9th. She left behind a son, Raymond and two sisters. Sources: Leslie's Weekly Newspaper (July 22, 1897); NY Age (June 8, 1916): The New York Age (June 8, 1916)

Emma Louise Hyers (1857 - circa 1901), one half of the famous Hyers Sisters. After the Gold Rush, a New York City barber named Samuel B. Hyers, 26, came west with his young wife. They settled in Sacramento, where he opened a barbershop and she devoted herself to the musical education of their gifted young daughters, Emma Louise and Anna Madah. The girls received pianoforte lessons and vocal training and were soon performing at private parties in order to gain experience in front of an audience. On April 22, 1867, the Hyers Sisters, 9 and 11, made their professional stage debut at Sacramento's Metropolitan Theater before a reported audience of 800. They received enthusiastic reviews in the Oakland Transcript and the Elevator, San Francisco's African American newspaper. When the girls were 14 and 16, they performed in Boston, singing mostly Verdi arias. By now their father was managing their career. "They are destined to occupy a high position in the musical world," the Boston critic wrote, citing the quality of Anna's high soprano (particularly her "faculty of reaching E-flat above the staff") and of Emma's phenomenal range, from mezzo-soprano to deep contralto. In 1872, the Hyers Sisters performed at the World Peace Jubilee, a festival held in Boston. It was the first major musical production in the country to feature artists of many colors together on the same stage. Their career reached its apex five years later, when a theater company organized by the Hyers family produced three musical dramas starring Anna and Emma. The shows "Out of Bondage," "The Underground Railway" and "Princess Orelia of Madagascar" were performed at San Francisco's Bush Theater. "Their production of 'Out of Bondage' (1890) was the first musical show to be produced by a black organization, thus signaling the transition from minstrelsy to black musical comedy in black entertainment." In 1883 the sisters decided to leave their father's management. Their parents had long been estranged, mother Annie Hyers having moved away from the family home in Sacramento, first to San Francisco then to Stockton. The breach with their father came in 1881 when he admitted into the company a young woman, 'little more than a teenager,' named Mary C Reynolds, whom he married two years later. He was then 53. Reynolds, billed as Mrs. May Hyers, was also a contralto and competed with Emma Louise (her stepdaughter) for roles. As the situation became untenable and likely to generate controversy, the sisters felt it incumbent on them to leave. At ages 17 and 19, they chose to be on their own. The sisters found new engagements for their combination of vocalists, at times in league with other managements, at other times contributing special items in companies of so called minstrels. Both sisters entered first marriages in 1883: Anna Madah to cornet player Henderson Smith and Emma Louise to bandleader George Freeman. The latter wedding took place in full view of the audience on the stage of the Baldwin Theatre in San Francisco during a performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Callender's Minstrels. By the start of the 1890s the sisters had been performing professionally for more than twenty years and had won recognition and respect for their talents and skills. The sisters announced that they were leaving the stage after a performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1893. Source: 'San Francisco Chronicle' by Heidi Benson and 'A History of African American Theatre' by Errol G Hill and James V Hatch Photo Source: Scrapbook belonged to Sallie Estell Ferris and passed down to her daughter, Ella Ferris Peck. The donor said that one of these women knew George M. Cohan (1878-1942), which explains why the album contains photographic prints of various performers active at the turn-of-the-century. Cohan was an entertainer, playwright, actor and director active prior to WWI. [Historic Charlton Park Village Museum]

Minnie Brown was a stage actress, singer and vaudevillian. Also, in 1920 she served as vice president for the National Association of Negro Musicians. The Broad Ax Newspaper (Salt Lake City Utah), June 22, 1912 Young Woman of Rare Talent, Concert and Stage Work of Miss Minnie Brown , Brief account of the notable career of a western girl who has won a national reputation as a vocal instructor in the Musical Settlement School. New York, one of the most accomplished and highly gifted singers of the race, who has made a national reputation in the art, is Miss Minnie Brown, the leading soprano soloist at St Mark's M. E. church, in this city. Miss Brown has a remarkably clear and sweet voice of wonderful range and under perfect control. So wonderful is the sweetness and control of her voice that she has earned the sobriquet of the human mocking bird. Miss Brown has had a notable musical career. She has toured the country in concert work. For six years she was a member of the Williams & Walker company and for one year was a member of the "Load of Koal" company, put on the road by Bert Williams. During her long career in concert work and on the stage she made a national reputation as one of the most thoroughly accomplished singers of the race. Miss Brown hails from the west and was born In Spokane, Washington. Her parents were pioneers of the west and represented the sturdy type of western settlers of years ago. At an early age she showed a leaning toward a musical career, and her parents encouraged every effort in that direction. She graduated from the Spokane high school. After graduation she took up the study of voice culture under Mrs. Ethel Child Waltron. Miss Brown attributes a great deal of her success in her musical career to the interest of her teacher. She began her career as a concert singer in her native home. Her tour through British Columbia and adjoining cities was very successful and opened up the way for the larger possibilities which awaited her. On coming east she joined the Williams & Walker company. For six years she remained with the company and won a place among the foremost of the talented aggregation. It was while with Williams & Walker that Miss Brown won her national reputation in featuring the song the "Red Rose," then the most popular ballad of the day, which she sang with decided success. Miss Brown will be remembered all over the country by the large number of patrons of this famous company. Her tour with "Load of Koal" ended her stage career. Since taking up her residence In New York, Miss Brown has been a force in the musical life of the city. She is one of the teachers in the Musical School Settlement for colored children in New York. She stands high in the musical circles of the country and in New York is constantly in demand as a singer. Miss Brown is a young woman of remarkable strength of character and is a splendid example to the young women of the race. With all of her culture and charm of personality Miss Brown remains the same modest and unassuming young woman which she was before winning her laurels in the musical world. She is ever ready to assist in any good movement for the advancement of the race. She has a large circle of friends in the religious, social and educational life of the city. Sources: Luther S White, Photographer; African American Vernacular Photography; Selections from the Daniel Cowin Collection

Charlotte "Lottie" Gee was born in 1886 in Millboro, Virginia. The details of her family and life remain obscure. Her career began in the early twentieth century as a dancing girl for the great Aida Overton Walker. In 1904, Gee appeared in James Weldon Johnson's musical comedy The Red Moon and other shows at that time. With Effie King and Lillian Gillman, she formed a trio, and then a sister act with Gillman. The two toured in vaudeville shows and Gee became a soloist with the Southern Syncopated Orchestra. When Gee, who played the part of Jessie Williams, introduced the song I'm Just Wild About Harry in the original Broadway musical comedy Shuffle Along also preempted New Yorkers' interest in black theatricals. Throughout the 1920s, Gee appeared in other revues. Notable among these was Chocolate Dandies (1924), a musical comedy in which she played the part of Angeline Brown. Edith Spencer and Gee teamed up in 1928, and advertised themselves as Harlem Sweethearts . When Lew Leslie's Blackbirds revue was mounted beginning 1926, it helped advance the career of several famous Harlem Renaissance artists, including Florence Mills, and Aida Ward. Mrs. Charlotte "Lottie" Gee Moy died on January 13, 1973. She is buried at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. Sources: Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era edited by Lean'tin L. Bracks, Jessie Carney Smith; The Competitor (vol. 2-3, '20-'21); Edward Elcha, Photographer

Belle Davis was an African American song and dance artist, entertainer, choreographer, and director. She was a recording pioneer who toured Europe extensively during the period 1901-1929. Not only did she record on disc as early as 1902, she also performed in front of a movie camera at least twice during the early years of this century. In spite of these extraordinary achievements, little has been written about her; her biography, her discography and her filmography remain sketchy. Belle Davis, was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 28, 1874, the daughter of George Davis. Of European and African ancestry, she spent most of her adult life abroad, largely in Britain, where she arrived in mid-1901 with two boys who were billed as Piccaninny Actors. Her performance style changed from ‘coon shouting’ and ‘ragtime singing’ in the 1890s to a more decorous manner, where prancing children provided the amusement. She directed their stage act, and with two, sometimes three or four, black children the act was a vigorous and popular entertainment in British and continental theatres. Davis's troupe appeared on the reputable Empire Theatre circuit in late 1901, recorded in London in 1902 (including the song ‘The Honey-Suckle and the Bee’), continued touring London and the provinces in 1903, and ventured to the continent. Dozens of other African-Americans were entertaining the British at this time, and on June 9, 1904 Davis married one of the more successful, Henry Troy, in London. Following her marriage the act continued to tour, and was filmed, for commercial distribution. The Empire circuit continued to employ the group, as did other leading theatres. They presented their ten-minute stage act in Dublin, Cardiff, Swansea, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Sheffield between May 1906 and August 1909, and appeared in Berlin, The Hague, Paris, Vienna, St Petersburg, and Brussels during the same period. Some leading performers had their apprenticeship as dancers in Davis's act; when they grew too large she recruited younger boys from America. The act had been seen by hundreds of thousands of Britons by 1914, when war prevented continental touring and so exposed more Britons to Belle Davis and Her Cracker Jacks. She and the children performed in major cities as well as Ayr, Doncaster, Portsmouth, Ilkeston, and Weymouth during the war years. Her last known performance in Britain was in 1918. From 1925 to 1929 she directed the dancing in the revues at the Casino de Paris, and 1929 also saw Belle Davis Piccaninnies in Germany with Wunderland der Liebe, a revue set in the south seas. As early as 1915 she was describing herself as married to the African American entertainer Edward Peter (Eddie) Whaley (circa 1880–1960), and she took out an American passport in the name Belle Whaley in 1920. She and Whaley eventually did marry, on July 12, 1926, but they had divorced by 1936. In 1938 she boarded the Queen Mary in Southampton to return to a Chicago address. Sometimes billed as a creole , Davis was a soprano whose songs were not from the minstrel show or spiritual traditions, but were graceful melodies. By contrast the children were energetic dancers who combined suppleness with comedy. Their well-dressed director's elegance was praised, and is evidenced by surviving promotional material. The mercurial entertainment business had few acts for whom top theatres provided employment for the length of time she worked in Britain. Her qualities both as a singer and as dance director, combined with her professionalism in travelling from town to town, country to country, in charge of boisterous children, were solid, and enabled her to have success at her chosen profession for three decades. Stately, well dressed, and showing faint African features, she presented American dance and song to countless Britons and kept top employers anxious to take her act for their shows. Source: [Rainer E. Lotz]

Aida Overton Walker is a name that should be more familiar to vaudeville and theater lovers than it is for she was the foremost African-American star of her generation which comprised the early years of the 20th century. Her national and even international fame was such that she was a living legend of black show business and in fact her vision of a world with dignified and respected black show business artists who did not have to demean themselves onstage was years ahead of reality. Her work helping young black artists and especially black women to become super-achievers and her own remarkable talents as singer, dancer, actress, comedienne and choreographer caused her to be one of the most admired and respected black women in America. Aida was born in 1880 in New York City and became known quickly for her talent as a dancer and singer as well as her great natural beauty. By 1895 she was a member of the famous black touring company disparagingly known as John Isham’s Octoroons and then joined the Black Patti Troubadours. This famous group was headed by Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, known as Sissieretta Jones, who became a famous soprano. She was called the “Black Patti” after the famous white soprano Adelina Patti, who was one of the foremost superstars of opera of her time. Her troupe, the Troubadours, consisted of a whole show that entertained black and sometimes also white audiences throughout the country. The show had some 40 performers but Adelina emerged as one of its leading stars. In 1898 she joined the rapidly rising comedy team of Bert Williams and George Walker, being featured in all of their landmark black performances including The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), the very famous In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905) and Bandanna Land (1907). Walker and Overton married soon after they began performing together. Her performance of Miss Hannah from Savannah in Sons of Ham caused a national sensation and furthermore Aida did the choreography for all of these big shows and emerged as the glue or catalyst that made the Walker-Williams shows work so well, as she worked behind the scenes with her husband supplying the themes and basic ideas for the shows, which then featured the great humor of Bert Williams. Although forgotten today, whereas Williams and Walker are more remembered, the three of them formed the most popular trio of “colored” entertainers in the world in the early years of the 20th century. Aida was also in demand as a choreographer for other shows such as Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson’s The Red Moon (1909). In these shows, although she performed in blackface, Aida refused to play black plantation stereotypes and an essential part of her political activism was to make the black woman stand tall and be an object of dignity and respect, even though she would attempt to make this statement through comedy and song. She became a huge hit in England from 1902 to 1904 with In Dahomey and was frequently hired for major society parties because she became known as the Queen of the Cakewalk from her dancing in the show and the British wanted to learn this remarkable dance so-named because originally those black dancers who did it well might receive a cake for a prize. In 1903 she played a command performance at Buckingham Palace for King Edward VII which added to her international reputation. In the midst of this success her husband allegedly contracted syphilis through affairs with other women and he collapsed during the run of Bandanna Land in 1908. She was able to fill in for her ailing husband, performing his part in drag and managing to save the company, but eventually he grew more ill and died in 1911 as the disease, which had symptoms of stuttering and memory loss was incurable at this time. Bert Williams went on to solo success with the Ziegfeld Follies and Aida was forced to develop into a solo artist as well, leading to her work as choreographer and featured star in Red Moon and she joined the famous African-American Smart Set Company in 1910 while her husband was still gravely ill. What she must have thought of her husband’s behavior is not recorded but her indomitable will to survive and continue her art and her work even despite his situation is clear. Ten days after her husband’s death she signed a contract to star with S. H. Dudley in an all-black traveling show. Walker was buried in his home town of Lawrence, Kansas, one of many black superstars of the time to die of syphilis which almost reached epidemic proportions in the black theatrical community around this time. Her post-Walker career was also distinctive as she emerged as a female superstar and was often invited to prominent white social gatherings to demonstrate the latest dances suitable for such events. Only Bert Williams among other black performers was able to do this and to work with white performers. For example she played the lead in Oscar Hammerstein’s 1912 revival of Salome at the Victoria Theater in New York, a role she had essayed in the black theater since the initial Salome craze of the early years of the century. Aida was also an activist for black causes years and years before this was something that was popularly accepted. She raised significant funds for the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls and worked to promote opportunities for young black women in the entertainment business through her connections. She hoped to promote a new generation of refined and elegant black performers free of the hamstringing stereotypes of the previous decades. To this end in 1913 and 1914 she promoted the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls and produced shows for these troupes to show black women as original creative talent. This she did despite suffering from a number of disabling illnesses that beset her after the death of her husband. In the 1910s she was described by critics as “the best Negro comedienne today” and “the most fascinating and vivacious female comedy actress the Negro race has ever produced”. Her ability to mesmerize an audience and her standard numbers performed in drag which she perfected while filling in for her ailing husband were legendary. Indeed each of her performances in shows or in vaudeville featured one of her famous drag numbers. And then just as suddenly it was all over. Just 34 years of age, Aida died quickly on October 1, 1914 from kidney failure and hundreds of people came to her house to honor her and to grieve. A true legend of black vaudeville and theater had passed. Every black female entertainer of note in this world owes a great debt to this pioneering entertainer who envisioned a world which honored and respected black talent and who died at the height of her fame. Sources: The American Vaudeville Museum & UA Collection; James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library

The image is of Bert Williams, first black star of vaudeville. Here is as a caricature to please the masses. To make us more palatable to their tastebuds. Facing Racism : Racial prejudice shaped Williams' career. Unlike many other blackface performers, Williams did not play for laughs at the expense of other African Americans or black culture. Instead, he based his humor on universal situations in which any members of his audience might find themselves. In the style of vaudeville, Williams performed in blackface makeup like his white counterparts. Blackface worked like a double mask for him. It emphasized the difference between Williams, his fellow vaudevillians, and his white audiences. People sometimes ask me if I would not give anything to be white. I answer, in the words of the song, most emphatically, “No.” How do I know what I might be if I were a white man? I might be a sand-hog, burrowing away and losing my health for eight dollars a day. I might be a street-car conductor at twelve or fifteen dollars a week. There is many a white man less fortunate and less well equipped than I am. In truth, I have never been able to discover that there was anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have found it inconvenient—in America. How many times have hotel keepers said to me, ‘I know you, Williams, and I like you, and I would like nothing better than to have you stay here, but you see we have “southern gentlemen” in the house and they would object.’ Frankly, I can’t understand what it is all about. I breathe like other people, eat like them - if you put me at a dinner table you can be reasonably sure that I won’t use my ice cream fork for my salad; I think like other people.I guess the whole trouble must be that I don’t look like them. They say it is a matter of race prejudice. But if it were prejudice, a baby would have it, and you will never find it in a baby. It has to be inculcated on people. For one thing I have noticed that this ‘race prejudice’ is not to be found in people who are sure enough of their position to be able to defy it. For example, the kindest, most courteous, most democratic man I ever met was the king of England, the late King Edward VII. - Bert Williams

Anna Madah Hyers performed in black musical theater with her sister, Emma Louise Hyers. The Hyers Sisters & Co. produced the "first full-fledged musical plays in which African Americans themselves comment on the plight of the slaves and the relief of Emancipation without the disguises of minstrel comedy." Their first play was Out of Bondage (also known as Out of the Wilderness), followed by Urlina, the African Princess, The Underground Railway, and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Anna Madah Hyers (1855 - 1925), one half of the famous Hyers Sisters were important performers of musical theatre in northern California. They lived in Sacramento and started out as musical prodigies. Anna Madah was 12yrs and Emma Louise was 10yrs (although they were billed as ages 10 and 8) at their concert debut in 1867at the Metropolitan Theatre in Sacramento. Their parents, Samuel B. Hyers and Annie E. Hyers (nee Cryer), had come west from New York. As singers themselves, they had first trained their daughters before sending them for instruction to a German professor, Hugo Frank, and then to the opera singer Josephine D'Ormy. Anna was a soprano; Emma a contralto and gifted comedienne noted for her character songs. They performed for several years in the San Francisco and Oakland areas before embarking on their first transcontinental tour in 1871, under their father's management. For their east coast performances, including an appearance at the Steinway Hall in New York, Samuel Hyers engaged the services of Wallace King, tenor and John Luca, baritone. Mr. A.C. Taylor pianist of San Francisco, traveled with the sisters as accompanist. Early in their repertoire the sisters had included 'dialogues in character' and were said to possess 'great dramatic ability.' It was no surprise, when on March 26, 1876 at the Academy of Music in Lynn, Massachusetts, they presented a musical drama entitled, 'Out of the Wilderness,' which had been written for them by Joseph Bradford of Boston. For this show the quartet of singers was joined by Sam Lucas, a sometime minstrel actor slated to become a veteran comedian of the African American stage. Billed as the Hyers Sisters Combination, the troupe toured their show to New England towns, playing mostly one-night stands. In June the play's title was changed to 'Out of Bondage.' It was a simple tale of a slave family before and the Civil War. Four younger slaves go North as older folk hold back when Union troops arrive to liberate the South. In the end the family is reunited as the elders, who had stayed behind, visit their children, who have become professional vocalists. In 1883 the sisters decided to leave their father's management. Their parents had long been estranged, mother Annie Hyers having moved away from the family home in Sacramento, first to San Francisco then to Stockton. The breach with their father came in 1881 when he admitted into the company a young woman, 'little more than a teenager,' named Mary C Reynolds, whom he married two years later. He was then 53. Reynolds, billed as Mrs. May Hyers, was also a contralto and competed with Emma Louise (her stepdaughter) for roles. As the situation became untenable and likely to generate controversy, the sisters felt it incumbent on them to leave. At ages 17 and 19, they chose to be on their own. The sisters found new engagements for their combination of vocalists, at times in league with other managements, at other times contributing special items in companies of so called minstrels. Both sisters entered first marriages in 1883: Anna Madah to cornet player Henderson Smith and Emma Louise to bandleader George Freeman. The latter wedding took place in full view of the audience on the stage of the Baldwin Theatre in San Francisco during a performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Callender's Minstrels. By the start of the 1890s the sisters had been performing professionally for more than twenty years and had won recognition and respect for their talents and skills. Sources: A History of African American Theatre by Errol G Hill and James V Hatch; Moorland-Spingarn Research Center; The Huntington Library; Miriam Matthews Photograph Collection (UCLA Collections)