Category: Women in Theater
Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Women in Theater

Jean Margaret Davenport

• Maggie

Civil War Nurse and Stage Actress Jean Margaret Davenport (May 3, 1829, Wolverhampton, England – August 3, 1903, Washington, D.C.), later Mrs. Frederick William Lander, was an English actress with a career in both England and the United States. American Civil War nurse and English-American stage actress Early Years Jean Margaret Davenport was born May 3, 1829, in Wolverhampton, England. Her father was a lawyer, but he left the bar for the stage and became the manager of the Richmond Theatre in the London borough of Richmond Upon Thames. At the age of seven, Jean made her first professional appearance at that theater as Little Pickle in The Manager’s Daughter, and in Dion Boucicault’s version as The Young Actress. Jean…

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Civil War Women, Civil War Women Working, Women in Theater

Laura Keene

• Maggie

Performing at Ford’s Theatre When Lincoln Was Shot Laura Keene was a British-American stage actress who became known was the first powerful female theater manager and is credited with establishing New York City as the leading theatrical center in the United States. She was the featured actress in the production of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre, during which John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln. Early Years She was born Mary Frances Moss July 20, 1826 in Winchester, England to Jane Moss and Tomas King. In 1844, she married British Army officer John Taylor. They had two daughters, Emma (in 1846) and Clara Marie Stella (in 1849). After being discharged from the army, Taylor opened his own tavern. He…

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Women in Theater

Lotta Crabtree

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Entertainer and Philanthropist Lotta Crabtree began her career as a singer, dancer and actress at a very young age. She would go on to become one of the wealthiest and most beloved American entertainers of the late 19th century. From her beginnings as a 6-year-old until her retirement at the age of 45, she was called The Nation’s Darling. Image: Lotta Crabtree in 1868 Early Years She was born Charlotte Mignon Crabtree on November 7, 1847 in New York City to British immigrants Mary Ann Livesey Crabtree, an upholsterer, and John Ashworth Crabtree, a book seller. Her father left for San Francisco in 1851, seeking his fortune in the California Gold Rush. A year later Mary Ann sold the book…

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Famous Mothers, Women in Theater

Elizabeth Arnold Poe

• Maggie

Stage Actress and Mother of Edgar Allan Poe Elizabeth Arnold Poe (1787–1811) was an English-born American actress and the mother of the American author Edgar Allan Poe. She was noted for her beauty, her singing voice and her theatrical talent. Though he had no independent memory of his mother – she died a month before his third birthday – her untimely death greatly influenced Edgar Allan Poe’s writing. Elizabeth Arnold was born to Henry and Elizabeth Arnold in London in the spring of 1787. Her mother was a stage actress in London from 1791 to 1795. Henry died in 1789, and in November 1795 mother and daughter sailed from England to the United States, arriving in Boston, Massachusetts on January…

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Civil War Women, Women in Theater

Louisa Lane

• Maggie

Stage Actress and Theater Manager Louisa Lane (1820-1897) was an actress and theater manager of British birth, who commanded great respect as the first female manager of a major American theater. Known for her skill as a character actor and comedian, Louisa Lane was a stage star who ultimately became the matriarch of one of the greatest acting families of all time: the Barrymores. Her legacy lives on in her descendants, including her great-great-granddaughter Drew Barrymore. Louisa Lane was born January 10, 1820 in London, England, the daughter of actress and singer Eliza Trenter and actor and stage manager Thomas Frederick Lane. Her father died during her infancy, and Louisa’s first experience on the stage occurred when she was only…

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Feminists, Poets and Writers, Women in Education, Women in Theater

Susanna Rowson

• Maggie

Early American Educator, Novelist and Actress Susanna Rowson’s novel Charlotte Temple became the first bestseller in America when it was published in 1794 by Matthew Carey of Philadelphia. Rowson (1762–1824) was a British-American novelist, poet, textbook author, playwright and actress. She was also a pioneer in female education, opening the Academy for Young Ladies in Boston in 1797, offering an advanced curriculum to young ladies, and operating the school until her retirement in 1822. Childhood and Early Years Susanna Haswell was born in 1762 in Portsmouth, England to Royal Navy Lieutenant William Haswell and Susanna Musgrave Haswell, who soon died from complications of childbirth, an event that surely influenced Rowson’s fiction. Her father left Susanna in England in the care…

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Civil War Women, Women in Theater

Charlotte Cushman

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Women in Theater: Dramatic Stage Actress Charlotte Cushman (1816-1876) was the most famous American actress of the nineteenth century, enjoying success on the stage in both the United States and Europe. Cushman’s acting career spanned four decades during which she performed many roles in plays by William Shakespeare, such as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Queen Katherine in Henry VIII and Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. While performing in Washington, DC, Cushman’s audience included President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward. Charlotte Saunders Cushman was born in Boston, Massachusetts on July 23, 1816, the eldest of the four children of Elkanah and Mary Eliza Babbitt Cushman of Boston, Massachusetts. Her father rose from poverty to be a successful West…

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Civil War Women, Women in Theater

Anna Cora Mowatt

• Maggie

Writer and Theater Actress in the Civil War Era Anna Cora Mowatt (1819–1870) was an author, playwright and actress. She was the first upper-middle-class woman to make a career in the theater, and her successes helped to legitimize acting as an occupation for women. Mowatt is generally regarded as a significant contributor to the development of American drama. Early Years Born on March 5, 1819, in France, Anna Cora Ogden was one of fourteen children born to Samuel and Eliza Lewis Ogden, both descendants of old colonial families. Eliza Ogden’s grandfather was Francis Lewis, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Samuel Ogden was one of the principal distributors of Bordeaux wines in the United States, and moved…

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Civil War Spies, Civil War Women, Women in Theater

Belle Boyd

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Confederate Spy in the Civil War One of the most famous of Confederate spies, Belle Boyd served the Southern forces in the Shenandoah Valley, running her spying operations from her father’s hotel in Front Royal, Virginia. Betrayed by her lover, Boyd was arrested on July 29, 1862, and again in June 1863. Finally released but suffering from typhoid, she went to Europe to regain her health. Childhood and Early Years She was born Maria Isabelle Boyd in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), on May 9, 1844. Her father, a hotelier and storekeeper, was prosperous enough to send his spirited daughter to Mount Washington Female College in Baltimore, where she studied from 1856 to 1860. She learned to speak French fluently…

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Civil War Spies, Civil War Women, Women in Theater

Pauline Cushman

• Maggie

Civil War Spy and Theater Actress Pauline Cushman, a Union spy, was born Harriet Wood on June 10, 1833, in New Orleans and spent some of her early childhood there. Her father then moved the family to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Pauline did not like it there, and at seventeen she ran away to New York to become an actress. She landed some small parts and caught the attention of a theatre owner from New Orleans, who hired her on the spot. While Pauline was in New York, she married Charles Dickinson, a musician, on February 7, 1853. Sometime after their wedding, Charles and Pauline moved to his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, where he found work as a music teacher. In…

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