"Charlotte Cushman," Chicago Tribune, June 22, 1878

"Charlotte Cushman," Chicago Tribune, June 22, 1878

Stebbins, Emma, 1815-1882

Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876

Reputation

Actors and Actresses--US American

Criticism

Gossip--Published

Marriage

Cushman, Edwin "Ned" Charles, 1838-1909

Family

Fame

Italy--Rome

England--London

Death

This review laments that Emma Stebbins's biography of Charlotte Cushman lacks a proper account of Cushman's dramatic career and instead focuses too much on her private life. Emma Stebbins first met Cushman in Rome and the "two ladies soon became inseparable companions, and for many years lived in the same apartments, the pictures of home-life from this point became full and entertaining." The author detects Stebbins's emphasis on the "studious separation of Miss Cushman from the stage in all that pertained to private life." Probably based on Celia Logan's account, the Chicago Tribune journalist claims that Cushman "devoted herself to her art" after unrequited love early on in her life, a "wise" decision since it allowed her to rise to success in comparison to other women who failed to do so in marriage.
The article presents Cushman as religious and embedded in a social circle of numerous widely-known people. Cushman loved the family of Ned and Emma Cushman, even though Emma is not mentioned in this article. However, it also claims that Cushman was "was distrusted or envied by a large majority of her professional brethren and sisters."

Credit

Newspaper.com

1878-06-22

Reference

The Life of Charlotte Cushman, written by Miss Stebbins and published by Houghton, Osgood & Co., is in many respects a remarkable work. We should call it a specimen of almost faultless biography if it contained an adequate notice of Miss Cushman's professional labors. But professional experience is far from being all of the life of such a woman as Charlotte Cushman. It is possible to write well about her without doing justice to her profession, because she lived largely outside of that profession. In saying, therefore, that Miss Stebbins' biography would have been almost faultless but for the serious omission referred to, we do not condemn with faint praise. [...] There is no part of Miss Cushman's life more interesting than that in which she was winning success, but Miss Stebbins passes over it lightly. The record of the first London engagement is fuller, but even this is not satisfactory. It tells nothing of the motives which induced her to undertake each character, nor of the manner of producing them which she adopted, nor of the success which atteneded them.
The delightful parts of the biography are those which reveal Miss Cushman's home-life. [...] We have brief records of tours into the most lovely parts of England, almost always undertaken with one or two friends. So it was with her life in Rome. There Miss Stebbins first met her, and as the two ladies soon became inseparable companions, and for many years lived in the same apartments, the pictures of home-life from this point became full and entertaining. [...]
Miss Stebbins has done ample justice to the character of Miss Cushman. The integrity, resolution, self-reliance, lovableness and generosity of that noble woman are over and over again exhibited, though rather by the simple recital of her acts than by positive affirmation. [...] But Miss Cushman held herself aloof from the profession, and was distrusted or envied by a large majority of her professional brethren and sisters. Miss Stebbins almost naively reveals one reason for this feeling when she remarks the studious separation of Miss Cushman from the stage in all that pertained to private life. [...]
There is another phase of Miss Cushman's life barely touched upon in this book, which we would like to enlarge upon if the limits of this article would permit. It is intimated that she had a disappointment in love in early life. Therafter she devoted herself to her art, and stifled, so far as she could, the womanly instincts which made her crave not only the general affection of those about her, but a special and particular love. She did not wholly succeed in so doing, but she learned to rejoice in preferring her art to all other loves. No doubt she was wise in this. There are too many instances of promising artists ruined by unfortunate marriages to make us wish that she had decided otherwise. If Julia Dean had not married, she might have taken a position in the profession near to that which Miss Cushman reached. Fanny Kemble would certainly have continued long to adorn her chosen profession if she had not married, and so might Miss O'Neil have done. But, though Miss Cushman chose the better part and knew it, she could never root out her longing for home-ties. She was passionately fond of her children. Her nephew's children were to her like her own. She called herself their "big mamma," and she would travel any distance to be present at her birth, even on one occasion crossing the ocean for that prupose. It was her great joy to be the first to receive them in her arms, and se had a feeling that this ceremony made them more her own.  [...]
Miss Stebbins has an agreeable style,--pointed, concise, and clear, though not always correct. She has generally, also, a proper sense of the relative importance of the incidents she has to deal with. If it were not for the one drawback we have noticed,--the failure to do full justice to the dramatic career of Miss Cushman,--we should say that the biography was in every respect worthy of the subject.

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