Browse Items (972 total)
Sort by:
Letter from Charlotte Cushman to the Fields Family, [before 1876]
Cushman invites the Fields family to come over for a visit. She describes Mr Tilton as short-tempered.
Credit
Huntington Library, James Thomas Fields Papers and Addenda
Nathaniel Hawthorne
He repeatedly criticizes women writers such as Grace Greenwood.
Tags: respectability, women's jobs
Byrne's Gossip of the Century: Personal and Traditional Memories (1892)
A retrospective account of Cushman as actress and of her private life: The Memories serve as a good example for how the public image changes after Cushman's death and her success as an actress is being forgotten step by step.Gossip of the Century…
Edmund Burke Fisher
Fisher works as an editor and writer, for the New Yorker among others. He regularly presents himself as an admirer and suitor of Cushman. He actively shapes her career by facilitating business contacts and expanding Cushman social capital.
Letter from Charlotte Cushman to Eliza Meteyard
In this letter to English author Eliza Meteyard, Charlotte Cushman inquires about payment rates for journal articles in England (presumably on behalf of Matilda Hays)
Credit
Stead Collection, Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library
Tags: financial concerns
Bessie Rayner Belloc's A Passing World (1897)
Credit
Hathi Trust
Public Ledger, Sept 7, 1843
A similar news report can be found in the Pennsylvania Inquirer from Sept 8, 1843.
Credit
Readex: America's Historical Newspapers
Tags: press coverage
John G. Nicolay, Lincoln's Secretary
In the context of social gatherings in Washington after 1862, Nicolay took notes about meeting Cushman and Stebbins.
Macready's Diary – Cushman mentions (edited by Toynbee, 1912)
The diary entries depict an interesting dynamic between Macready's and Cushman's relationship. There is no diary entry from the beginning of January, 1844, when Cushman published her poem about Macready in the Anglo American Journal. Usually,…
William Charles Macready
Macready and Cushman meet in 1843. The relationship between Macready and Cushman is displayed in an exhibit.On July 10, 1848, he takes a farewell benefit at Drury Lane, and Charlotte Cushman performs as Queen Katharine to his Wolsey.
Grace Greenwood
Grace Greenwood is the pen name of Sara Jane Clarke Lippincott. Lippincott often signs her letters with her pseudonym. Greenwood travels Europe (for a certain period of time, she also travels with Cushman) in 1853 and publishes Greenwood Leaves with…
Tags: press coverage, Rome, social capital
Frances Power Cobbe
Cobbe stayed with Hosmer and Cushman in Rome, 38 Via Gregoriana, during her Italian travels in 1861/62.Commenting on the role of Rome for independent women, Cobbe publishes Italics: Brief Notes on Politics, People and Places in 1864.In vol. 2 of her…
Tags: public intimacy, Rome, same-sex attraction
Kate Field
Kate Field is a US American journalist who lives in Rome at the same time as Charlotte Cushman. She has been familiar with Cushman even as a child, as her mother Eliza Riddle Field played with Charlotte Cushman in Romeo and Juliet.Field is born in…
Edwin Booth
He is an actor an theater owner as well as the brother of Lincoln's murderer John Wilkes Booth. His father is Junius Booth. He is first married to Mary Devlin and later to Mary McVicker.
Anonymous Fan Letter
In this anonymous, undated letter, signed "a friend," a fan of Cushman professes her (?) admiration for the actress and then explains how she found solace in her faith. She recommends Cushman does the same.
Credit
Library of Congress, Charlotte…
Featured Item
Charlotte Cushman
Charlotte Cushman becomes widely known on both sides of the Atlantic as the first successful US-American actress. Earlier, she was a singer under the tutelage of James G. Maeder, married to actress Clara Fisher, in Boston. Charlotte has been the sole financial support of her mother since her father…

