Browse Items (92 total)

  • Tags: public intimacy

Matilda Hays

Cabinet Photo of Cushman and Hays
Matilda Hays and Cushman meet "[s]ometime, probably after 1846" (Merrill 156). Hays plays the Juliet to Cushman’s Romeo in 1848, when Cushman's sister Susan plans to marry James Sheridan Muspratt. Hays is in a relationship with Charlotte Cushman in…

Stebbins's Charlotte Cushman: Her Letters and Memories of Her Life (1878)

Stebbins Bio.JPG
Biography of Charlotte Cushman, written after her death by her spouse Emma Stebbins. The transcribed correspondence between Stebbins and Sidney Lanier (who had originally been chosen as the author of the biography) details the painstaking process of…

Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury

Geraldine Jewsbury (left) and Jane Welsh Carlyle (right), April 1855
She writes several novels, among which Half Sisters (1848) is her most famous one. It comments on Victorian society and gender norms. The character Bianca, an actress who is half Italian, is said to be loosely based on Charlotte Cushman with whom…

Diary Entry by Anne H. Brewster about the Breakup of Charlotte Cushman and Matilda Hays

ABP Box 4 5, diary 1876. On CC and Hays_excerpt.pdf
The complete diary entry for June 5, 1876 is 24 pages long and details the time Harriet Hosmer and Anne H. Brewster spent together. The last eight pages (transcribed here) recount, how Hosmer witnessed the passionate breakup of Charlotte Cushman and…

Waters' Charlotte Cushman (1882)

Cushman Actor Series.png
The biography is part of an American Actor Series. It focuses on Cushman's stage career and includes letters, lists of performances and casts, advertisements of Cushman's performances, as well as articles. The Fields are, for instance, not mentioned.…

Mary Howitt's An Autobiography (1889)

Howitt, Mary_Autobiography. Selected pages mention CC. Masculine Appearance (1889)-pages 3-4.pdf
The autobiography was edited by Howitt's daughter. It briefly mentions Cushman, "her intimate friend, Eliza Cook," and their style of dressing in "a very masculine style"

Stillman's The Autobiography of a Journalist (1901), Vol. 1

Stillman_The Autobiography of a Journalist v.1.pdf
Charlotte Cushman is mentioned on pages 359-365.Cushman and her "clique" (365) included Miss Stebbins, Harriet Hosmer, "and one or two others of lesser fame" (359).He states that she used her fame or even Stillman (critic) to denounce other sculptors…

Howe's Memories of a Hostess (1922)

Howe edited some of Annie Fields's diary entries. Some entries refer to some events and letters that are part of the Fields Papers, which can also be accessed in this collection.The diary entries mention Stebbins as Cushman's "guest[]," and Cushman's…

Frances Power Cobbe

Portrait of 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…

Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Mrs Stowe and Her Neighbors in Rome," Lowell Daily Citizen and News, July 23, 1860

1860. Beecher Stowe, Harriet_Rome Neighbors_Lowell_Daily_Citizen_and_News__July_23_1860.pdf
Originally, the article was published in the New York Independent on July 12, 1860. Stowe describes social gatherings in Via Gregoriana in Rome. She explicitly mentions Cushman's household, Stebbins, and Hosmer, who are living together. The short…

"Strong Friendship between Hosmer and Cushman", Albany Evening Journal, Jan 21, 1859

Albany Evening Journal, Hosmer and Cushman mention, January 21, 1859-with annotations.pdf
On page 2, the newpaper uses the term "strong friendship." It is publicly known that both women live together. Credit Readex: America's Historical Newspapers

"The Cabinet", Farmer's Cabinet, Feb 2, 1859

Farmer's Cabinet, Hosmer and Cushman mention, February 2, 1859-with annotations.pdf
In one of the entries in this column, Hosmer and Cushman are reported to be living together in Rome. Credit Readex: America's Historical Newspapers

[no title], Weekly Council Bluffs Bugle, Oct 26, 1859

Weekly Council Bluffs Bugle, Stebbins and Cushman mention, October 26, 1859-with annotations.pdf
A very short entry reports that Charlotte Cushman and Emma Stebbins are travelling together to Rome. Credit Readex: America's Historical Newspapers

Letter from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to her sister Arabel, Oct 22, 1852

NYPL Berg Coll E.B.B to sister 1852, oct. CC + Hayes.pdf
Browning describes Cushman and Hays's relationship as a "female marriage." Credit New York Public Librarysee also: The Brownings Correspondence by Wedgestone Press

Letter from Charlotte Cushman to Emma Crow Cushman, May 11, 1865

CC to ECC, May 11, 1865 - LoC, CCP, Box 2,787-790 -2.pdf
Charlotte writes about Lincoln's assassination and its impact on her and people she knows. Additionally, she tells Emma Crow Cushman about guests who stayed in her house that were not particularly welcome. Most of all, this letter is about…

New York Times, Stebbins and Cushman, Aug 31, 1860

The author of this article mentions a "peculiar intimacy" between Stebbins and Cushman.

Pennsylvania Inquirer and National Gazette, Feb 1, 1843

Pennsylvania Inquirer and National Gazette (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wednesday, February 01, 1843; Issue 27.pdf
Published in the category of communication, signed by "E."The article mentions the genius of Cushman as well as the struggle of the theater profession to gain public appreciation. Interestingly, the article speaks about Cushman's "private worth" that…

Letter from Charlotte Cushman to James Fields, Nov 21, 1862

Letter from CC to JT, November 21, 1862
Tilton has not been handling the sending of Cushman's belongings very well. Cushman is grateful for the books James Fields has sent her way, but comments on him forgetting to do so as of lately. These two issues cause her describe men (="sex") as…

Boston Daily Advertiser, Charlotte Cushman, Feb 19, 1876

The article is an obituary published one day after Cushman's death. It praises the actress and her achievements and performances. Additionally, it speaks about Cushman's relationships with women as her "power of attaching women to her."In 1871,…

Letter from Charlotte Cushman to Annie Fields, June 29, 1873

CC to AF, 1873-05-29.pdf
The commissioned sculpture of an angel in Central Park, created by Emma Stebbins, was met with ridicule by several papers. Cushman urges Annie to help her act against this slander. Fields could help to "destroy the effect of this dirty article" in…