Kicha's photos with the keyword: Stage

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

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

Mattie Wilkes was born on February 14, 1875 in Montclair, New Jersey. She was a soprano and character actress of the musical and dramatic stage; active 1890s - 1920s. At the high point in her career, the Indianapolis Freeman in a March 9, 1901, article called her "a meritorious prima donna whose singing carried the house at every appearance." During the decade of the 1890s, after receiving some training as a member of Bob Cole's All-Star Company at Worth's Museum in New York City, she was a character actress and wardrobe mistress with The Octoroons (1895) and the leading soprano of the Oriental America Show (1896), where her singing was usually greeted with great applause. In 1900 she toured as a soprano with Williams and Walker's The Policy Players, and in 1901 she was a prima donna and special feature with L.E. Gideon's Minstrels. By 1902, having "toured abroad in all European capitals," she was already a famous singer and was then performing as a soubrette with the Smart Set Company in a show called Enchantment, of which Ernest Hogan and Billy McClain were the stars. During the tour of that show, she married Hogan; however, the marriage was short lived. During the summer of 1903, after they had performed together in a vaudeville sketch called "The Missionary Man," in which Mrs. Wilkes-Hogan played the role of Mrs. Angelica Scattergood the couple parted. In later life she acted in at least two films by famed African American director Oscar Micheaux, which includes: The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920), and The Gunsaulus Mystery (1921). For His Mother's Sake (1922) was made by Blackburn-Velde Pictures. She died on July 9, 1927 in Montclair, New Jersey at just 52. Sources: Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960, by Bernard L. Peterson; Fred J. Hamill and Paul Cohn, “Of Course” / Introduced by Mattie V. Wilkes, with Williams & Walker (Windsor Music Co., NY. c/1900)

According to European press, she was the prettier alternative to Josephine Baker. Ruth Bayton (1907 - ? ), was an entertainer who first went to Europe as a chorus girl with Florence Mills in the hit play, Blackbirds. In 1927, she also appeared as an opening act for comedic actor Valeriano Ruiz Paris, dancing the "Black-Bottom Stomp" and the "Charleston" at the Teatro Comico in Barcelona, Spain. A painting of her still exists on the walls of the Paris Odeon. Throughout her career Ms. Bayton tried in vain to ride on Josephine Baker's coattails. Following Baker she also performed on stage wearing nothing but a girdle of bananas and a smile. [Afro American newspaper (March 3, 1928 edition]: Miss Ruth Bayton, most recent arrival from Harlem, is to take the place of Josephine Baker in the New Revue that is soon to appear at the Folies-Bergere, and has a year's contract with them in her bag. Miss Bayton has had much success in Madrid, Vienna, and Berlin in which latter place she played for eighteen months. Josephine Baker is now in Vienna but her picture (Baker's first film, Siren of the Tropics), at the Aubert Palace is still drawing large audiences. One critic said of her: Ruth Bayton, American dancer, whose reported romance with a Spanish monarch (King Alphonso of Spain), has caused society here and abroad to gasp, will cause a "tragedy" in France, according to David Sturgis, white critic, writing of her from paris. Sturgis says in the current issue of Variety: "I can't write anymore tonight. I have just seen Ruth Bayton dance. She is the colored artist at the Folies Wagram. She was once a stenographer in Virginia. Won a beauty prize offered by a New York newspaper. She is appearing this summer at a French channel resort. "I predict a tragedy on the coast. The nymphs, mad with jealousy, will strangle this creole goddess." [As reported in the Afro American newspaper on June 16, 1928] As reported in the The Afro American newspaper (May 29, 1937) edition: Ruth Bayton, playgirl of two continents, who created a sensation several years ago when she was reported to be a close friend of the then King Alphonso of Spain, is believed to be missing in the war torn country, according to relatives in New York. Miss Bayton has not been heard from since the outbreak of the conflict, and all efforts of her sister, Mrs. Julia Bayton Banks of 75 St. Nicholas Place to locate her have been futile. Miss Bayton, who first went to Europe in 1928 with Florence Mills in "Blackbirds," proceeded to Spain after the close of that production. Following her alleged sensational affairs at the Spanish Court she returned to America in 1932 and opened an exclusive dress shop for the Sugar Hill elite. Abandoning this enterprise, she returned to the night club world and again struck it rich when she foiled a holdup in a ritzy Broadway cabaret and was rewarded handsomely. With this money she returned to Spain and has not been heard from since. She was sought when her uncle, Dr. George Bayton, Philadelphia physician, died recently. (May 1937) Although Miss Bayton was always accepted as a New Yorker she was actually born in Tappahannock, Virginia where her father, the late Hansford Bayton, (1863 - 1927), was a well known river boat captain who operated an excursion steamer in the Tidewater section. Her family members are buried in the Bayton Family Cemetery in Essex County, Virginia. Photo: Getty Images, S. Ora, Photographer

Katherine Dunham as she appeared in the 1956 production of "Floyd's Guitar Blues." Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Born in Chicago, and raised in Joliet, Illinois, Katherine Dunham did not begin formal dance training until her late teens. In Chicago she studied with Ludmilla Speranzeva and Mark Turbyfill, and danced her first leading role in Ruth Page's ballet "La Guiablesse" in 1933. She attended the University of Chicago on scholarship (B.A., Social Anthropology, 1936), where she was inspired by the work of anthropologists Robert Redfield and Melville Herskovits, who stressed the importance of the survival of African culture and ritual in understanding African-American culture. While in college she taught youngsters' dance classes and gave recitals in a Chicago storefront, calling her student company, founded in 1931, "Ballet Negre." Awarded a Rosenwald Travel Fellowship in 1936 for her combined expertise in dance and anthropology, she departed after graduation for the West Indies (Jamaica, Trinidad, Cuba, Haiti, Martinique) to do field research in anthropology and dance. Combining her two interests, she linked the function and form of Caribbean dance and ritual to their African progenitors. The West Indian experience changed forever the focus of Dunham's life (eventually she would live in Haiti half of the time and become a priestess in the "vodoun" religion), and caused a profound shift in her career. This initial fieldwork provided the nucleus for future researches and began a lifelong involvement with the people and dance of Haiti. From this Dunham generated her master's thesis (Northwestern University, 1947) and more fieldwork. She lectured widely, published numerous articles, and wrote three books about her observations: JOURNEY TO ACCOMPONG (1946), THE DANCES OF HAITI (her master's thesis, published in 1947), and ISLAND POSSESSED (1969), underscoring how African religions and rituals adapted to the New World. And, importantly for the development of modern dance, her fieldwork began her investigations into a vocabulary of movement that would form the core of the Katherine Dunham Technique. What Dunham gave modern dance was a coherent lexicon of African and Caribbean styles of movement -- a flexible torso and spine, articulated pelvis and isolation of the limbs, a polyrhythmic strategy of moving -- which she integrated with techniques of ballet and modern dance. When she returned to Chicago in late 1937, Dunham founded the Negro Dance Group, a company of black artists dedicated to presenting aspects of African-American and African-Caribbean dance. Immediately she began incorporating the dances she had learned into her choreography. Invited in 1937 to be part of a notable New York City concert, "Negro Dance Evening," she premiered "Haitian Suite," excerpted from choreography she was developing for the longer "L'Ag'Ya." In 1937-1938 as dance director of the Negro Unit of the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago, she made dances for "Emperor Jones" and "Run Lil' Chillun," and presented her first version of "L'Ag'Ya" on January 27, 1938. Based on a Martinique folktale (ag'ya is a Martinique fighting dance), "L'Ag'Ya" is a seminal work, displaying Dunham's blend of exciting dance-drama and authentic African-Caribbean material. Dunham moved her company to New York City in 1939, where she became dance director of the New York Labor Stage, choreographing the labor-union musical "Pins and Needles." Simultaneously she was preparing a new production, "Tropics and Le Jazz Hot: From Haiti to Harlem." It opened February 18, 1939, in what was intended to be a single weekend's concert at the Windsor Theatre in New York City. Its instantaneous success, however, extended the run for ten consecutive weekends and catapulted Dunham into the limelight. In 1940 Dunham and her company appeared in the black Broadway musical, "Cabin in the Sky," staged by George Balanchine, in which Dunham played the sultry siren Georgia Brown -- a character related to Dunham's other seductress, "Woman with a Cigar," from her solo "Shore Excursion" in "Tropics." That same year Dunham married John Pratt, a theatrical designer who worked with her in 1938 at the Chicago Federal Theatre Project, and for the next 47 years, until his death in 1986, Pratt was Dunham's husband and her artistic collaborator. With "L'Ag'Ya" and "Tropics and Le Jazz Hot: From Haiti to Harlem," Dunham revealed her magical mix of dance and theater -- the essence of "the Dunham touch" -- a savvy combination of authentic Caribbean dance and rhythms with the heady spice of American showbiz. Genuine folk material was presented with lavish costumes, plush settings, and the orchestral arrangements based on Caribbean rhythms and folk music. Dancers moved through fantastical tropical paradises or artistically designed juke-joints, while a loose storyline held together a succession of diverse dances. Dunham aptly called her spectacles "revues." She choreographed more than 90 individual dances, and produced five revues, four of which played on Broadway and toured worldwide. Her most critically acclaimed revue was her 1946 "Bal Negre," containing another Dunham dance favorite, "Shango," based directly on "vodoun" ritual. If her repertory was diverse, it was also coherent. "Tropics and le Jazz Hot: From Haiti to Harlem" incorporated dances from the West Indies as well as from Cuba and Mexico, while the "Le Jazz Hot" section featured early black American social dances, such as the Juba, Cake Walk, Ballin' the Jack, and Strut. The sequencing of dances, the theatrical journey from the tropics to urban black America implied -- in the most entertaining terms -- the ethnographic realities of cultural connections. In her 1943 "Tropical Revue," she recycled material from the 1939 revue and added new dances, such as the balletic "Choros" (based on formal Brazilian quadrilles), and "Rites de Passage," which depicted puberty rituals so explicitly sexual that the dance was banned in Boston. Beginning in the 1940s, the Katherine Dunham Dance Company appeared on Broadway and toured throughout the United States, Mexico, Latin America, and especially Europe, to enthusiastic reviews. In Europe Dunham was praised as a dancer and choreographer, recognized as a serious anthropologist and scholar, and admired as a glamorous beauty. Among her achievements was her resourcefulness in keeping her company going without any government funding. When short of money between engagements, Dunham and her troupe played in elegant nightclubs, such as Ciro's in Los Angeles. She also supplemented her income through film. Alone, or with her company, she appeared in nine Hollywood movies and in several foreign films between 1941 and 1959, among them CARNIVAL OF RHYTHM (1939), STAR-SPANGLED RHYTHM (1942), STORMY WEATHER (1943), CASBAH (1948), BOOTE E RIPOSTA (1950), and MAMBO (1954). In 1945 Dunham opened the Dunham School of Dance and Theater (sometimes called the Dunham School of Arts and Research) in Manhattan. Although technique classes were the heart of the school, they were supplemented by courses in humanities, philosophy, languages, aesthetics, drama, and speech. For the next ten years many African-American dances of the next generation studied at her school, then passed on Dunham's technique to their students, situating it in dance mainstream (teachers such as Syvilla Fort, Talley Beatty, Lavinia Williams, Walter Nicks, Hope Clark, Vanoye Aikens, and Carmencita Romero; the Dunham technique has always been taught at the Alvin Ailey studios). During the 1940s and '50s, Dunham kept up her brand of political activism. Fighting segregation in hotels, restaurants and theaters, she filed lawsuits and made public condemnations. In Hollywood, she refused to sign a lucrative studio contract when the producer said she would have to replace some of her darker-skinned company members. To an enthusiastic but all-white audience in the South, she made an after-performance speech, saying she could never play there again until it was integrated. In São Paulo, Brazil, she brought a discrimination suit against a hotel, eventually prompting the president of Brazil to apologize to her and to pass a law that forbade discrimination in public places. In 1951 Dunham premiered "Southland," an hour-long ballet about lynching, though it was only performed in Chile and Paris. Toward the end of the 1950s Dunham was forced to regroup, disband, and reform her company, according to the exigencies of her financial and physical health (she suffered from crippling knee problems). Yet she remained undeterred. In 1962 she opened a Broadway production, "Bambouche," featuring 14 dancers, singers, and musicians of the Royal Troupe of Morocco, along with the Dunham company. The next year she choreographed the Metropolitan Opera's new production of "Aida" -- thereby becoming the Met's first black choreographer. In 1965-1966, she was cultural adviser to the President of Senegal. She attended Senegal's First World Festival of Negro Arts as a representative from the United States. Moved by the civil rights struggle and outraged by deprivations in the ghettos of East St. Louis, an area she knew from her visiting professorships at Southern Illinois University in the 1960s, Dunham decided to take action. In 1967 she opened the Performing Arts Training Center, a cultural program and school for the neighborhood children and youth, with programs in dance, drama, martial arts, and humanities. Soon thereafter she expanded the programs to include senior citizens. Then in 1977 she opened the Katherine Dunham Museum and Children's Workshop to house her collections of artifacts from her travels and research, as well as archival material from her personal life and professional career. During the 1980s, Dunham received numerous awards acknowledging her contributions. These include the Albert Schweitzer Music Award for a life devoted to performing arts and service to humanity (1979); a Kennedy Center Honor's Award (1983); the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (1987); induction into the Hall of Fame of the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. (1987). That same year Dunham directed the reconstruction of several of her works by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and "The Magic of Katherine Dunham opened Ailey's 1987-1988 season. In February 1992, at the age of 82, Dunham again became the subject of international attention when she began a 47-day fast at her East St. Louis home. Because of her age, her involvement with Haiti, and the respect accorded her as an activist and artist, Dunham became the center of a movement that coalesced to protest the United States' deportations of Haitian boat-refugees fleeing to the U.S. after the military overthrow of Haiti's democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. She agreed to end her fast only after Aristide visited her and personally requested her to stop. Boldness has characterized Dunham's life and career. And, although she was not alone, Dunham is perhaps the best known and most influential pioneer of black dance. Her synthesis of scholarship and theatricality demonstrated, incontrovertibly and joyously, that African-American and African-Caribbean styles are related and powerful components of dance in America. Snippet from Floyd's Guitar Blues (no sound): loc.gov/item/ihas.200003819 Source: PBS.ORG bio by Sally Sommer

Aida Overton Walker (1880 - 1914), dazzled early-twentieth-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 1880 in New York City, a city in which 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

An advert featuring the Armstrong Family: left to right Ellen Armstrong, John Hartford Armstrong, and Lille Belle Armstrong. One of America’s foremost early 20th-century African-American magic acts. J. Hartford Armstrong, his wife, Lille Belle Armstrong, and eventually their daughter (Lille's stepdaughter), Ellen Armstrong, performed feats that included mind reading, slight of hand, and card tricks. At times they were joined by J. Hartford Armstrong’s brother and by members of the Jordan family. They were lauded by one newspaper reporter “as being the most royal colored entertainers of the century, as magicians,—artists of the highest type.” The Armstrongs performed along the Atlantic seaboard from Key West to Philadelphia and are reputed to have toured in Cuba and Europe. According to the many newspaper accounts and handwritten endorsements included in their scrapbook, the troupe received widespread and enthusiastic audience acceptance. They performed before African-American audiences in churches and schools. They also gave performances for white audiences and, depending upon the location, for mixed audiences, in theaters, churches, schools, and opera houses. An advance publicity news clipping advertising their forthcoming appearance at Newport News, Va., asserts “The Armstrongs will tickle your shoe strings and make your big toe laugh. They will not pay doctor’s bills if you faint from laughter.” An undated newspaper clipping publicizing an appearance by the Armstrongs at the Columbia Theatre notes “These artists have been before the American public for the past 23 years, and have never failed to entertain their audiences with their magic, mirth, and mind reading mysteries. They have appeared in the largest cities of America and come well recommended.” John Hartford Armstrong Was one of the few black magicians who performed in the time span from 1900 to 1930. From 1901 through 1909 he toured with his brother Joseph (or Thomas) as the “Armstrong Brothers." Early 1901 he teamed up briefly with a magician named Jordan as "Armstrong and Jordan." After he married Lillie Belle he teamed with her as the “The Celebrated Armstrongs” also known as the “Armstrong Company." Lille Belle Armstrong When her husband died in 1939 both she and her stepdaughter Ellen continued his tradition, performing magic for the African American community. Lille Belle died in 1947. Ellen Armstrong She was the daughter of J. Hartford Armstrong and his first wife Mabel. Her mother died shortly after she was born. Along with her new stepmom (Lille Belle) she was soon integrated into the show. When her father passed away both she and her stepmom continued the act. After the death of her stepmom, Ellen continued her family's act becoming the first and only African American female magician touring with her own show. For thirty-one years, she continued to perform the Armstrong show up and down the East Coast, mainly at black churches and schools. Her tricks were common magic fare where she featured her own tricks and illusions of her father, such as "The Miser's Dream" and "The Mutilated Parasol." As time went on, she focused more on the drawing ability, billing herself as "Cartoonist Extraordinary." She retired in 1970 and spent her final years in a nursing home in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Her date of death is unknown. An excellent account of Ellen's life story can be found in the book, Conjure Times: Black Magicians in America by Jim Haskins and Kathleen Benson. Sources: magictricks.com; South Carolina Digital Archives/University of SC/Armstrong Family Papers

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)

These young ladies were known as the Florida Creole Girls who performed at the Casino de Paris shortly after the turn of the 20th century. They were part of an American dance troupe who helped introduce and popularize the Cake Walk Dance in Europe. Founder of the dance group is Miss Shippert standing in the center. I'm only able to name five other ladies but have no clue who is who: Miss Stafford, Miss Hobson, Miss Adams, Miss Hall and Miss Fitch. Walery, Photographer

Youngest sister (Emma Louise Hyers) top right and older sister (Anna Madah Hyers), is at the bottom left. The 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 1867 at 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 , Blacks in Blackface by Henry T Sampson

Aida Overton Walker pictured along with her hubby George A Walker in a publicity photo depicting their version of the famous Cakewalk in the 1903 play In Dahomey performed at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, England. The play was written by Will Marion Cook, Jesse A Shipp and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Synopsis: A musical comedy about a fraudulent scheme to return discontented Blacks to Africa. It was performed by a cast of about one hundred African American actors, and made a huge impact not only on the theatre but on fashion. Its display of dances such as the 'Cakewalk' and 'Buck and Wing' helped them become the latest dance hall crazes in the UK. Despite the show’s misrepresentations of Africa, it was a milestone because it was created and performed by an all-black cast and was the first to introduce an African theme to the musical genre. A few historical facts about the play In Dahomey : It was the first African American musical play. It was created and performed by an all African American cast. The show had 53 performances in New York,. Had a seven month run in England. The play ran between the years 1902 and 1905. All music and lyrics were written by African Americans, Will Marion Cook and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Source: V&A Theatre Collection