Abstract
Hamblin takes over management of New York’s Bowery Theatre, determining to cater to the working class and avoid paying high salaries to big-name stars. He begins to stage the thrilling melodramas for which he and the theatre will become known, exciting his rowdy Bowery audiences. With an active bar and prostitutes soliciting in the upper balcony of his theatre, Hamblin turns the Bowery into a popular, lucrative venture. He recruits Josephine Clifton, the daughter of another brothel madam, the infamous Adeline Miller, and turns both Clifton and Vincent into acclaimed stars. Nativist demonstrations prompt him to rebrand the Bowery as the “American Theatre.” He continues to act, to mixed reviews, in classical tragedies. His relationship with tragedian Junius Brutus Booth begins to grow contentious.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
Records of the New York Association, vols. 1 & 2, HTC; BTRB, Folger.
- 2.
Durang, PSD, Jan. 18, 1857. For a more thorough consideration of the era’s class separation and warfare, see Bruce A. McConachie and Daniel Friedman. Theatre for Working-Class Audiences in the United States, 1830–1980. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.
- 3.
Clarke 22; Durang, History of the Philadelphia Stage Between the Years 1749 and 1855 in Extra-Illustrated compendium of PSD articles, n.p., 1868, Smithsonian. 4:89.
- 4.
Durang, The Theatrical Rambles of Mr. and Mrs. John Greene, ed. William L. Slout. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1987, 130.
- 5.
NYA, July 31, 1830.
- 6.
Hone I:17; BTRB.
- 7.
Records of the New York Association, Aug. 28, 1830, HTC.
- 8.
Joseph H. Tooker, “Booth at the Old Bowery,” NYT, June 19, 1887.
- 9.
Archer 113–17; Phelps, 72; Henry Dickinson Stone. Personal Recollections of the Drama. 1873, rpt. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969, 175.
- 10.
Cowell 96.
- 11.
MCNYE, Sept. 29, 1830.
- 12.
Its author is unknown.
- 13.
BTRB.
- 14.
Ibid.; NYM, Oct. 9, 1830.
- 15.
“To the Public,” broadside, NYHS.
- 16.
“Pope’s Reminiscences,” The Theatre I:576.
- 17.
Christened with his father’s surname of Souness, the source and timing of his switch to Sowerby are unknown.
- 18.
Betsey acted occasionally at the Bowery in minor roles until her parents’ divorce, then withdrew from the stage to live with her father and attend school, acting only rarely until after his death.
- 19.
Dye, William S., Jr. A Study of Melodrama in England from 1800 to 1840. State College, PA: The Nittany Printing and Publishing Co., 1919, 43.
- 20.
Walter Moore Leman. Memories of an Old Actor. San Francisco: A. Roman Co., 1886, 131; “The Old Bowery,” NYDM, n.d.,” HTC; Brown, HNYS, I: 107–8; “About the Count Joannes,” New York Sun , July 13, 1879.
- 21.
BTRB; “Records of the New York Assoc. vol. 2,” HTC.
- 22.
NYM, June 11, 1831.
- 23.
New Orleans True Delta, Nov. 20, 1858.
- 24.
Clarke 16.
- 25.
Clarke 23.
- 26.
Naomi has been variously identified as Gallagher’s “adopted daughter,” daughter, or niece, but Mary Gallagher identified herself on property deeds in 1832 as “Mary Vincent, widow,” and signed receipts for funds from Hamblin for Naomi’s performances as “Mary Vincent” to enhance her claim to Naomi’s earnings. Clarke, who knew Naomi personally, calls her Gallagher’s niece, but may be repeating what Naomi had been told. Evidence suggests Naomi was Gallagher’s daughter. Although Hamblin later kept Naomi’s age artificially young in advertisements, her stated age in March 1833 as being “in her 19th year” (still 18) appears the most accurate. Her birth and death records, if either ever existed, have not survived.
- 27.
Clarke 23. Clifton’s age is also a matter of dispute, but evidence suggests her birthdate is March 9, 1814. Like Naomi’s, Hamblin skewed her age younger in advertisements. Her birth and death records have likewise not survived.
- 28.
Bruce Brightman Klee. An Analysis of Production Schedules in Professional Theatres in New York City from 1750 to 1950. Ph.D. Ohio State University, 1962, 100; Shank 608.
- 29.
Lydia Maria Child . Letters from New-York, ed. Bruce Mills. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1998, 174–75; Linda S. Bandy. Dance as a Dramatic Device in Nineteenth Century English Melodrama. M.A. York University, 1980, 15.
- 30.
David Grimsted, Melodrama Unveiled: American Theater & Culture 1800–1850. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968, 195.
- 31.
Albion, Oct. 27, 1827; New York SotT, June 15, 1839; American Quarterly Review June 1834, 333.
- 32.
“The Old Bowery” NYDM, n.d. (1896/97), HTC.
- 33.
NYM, Aug. 27, Sept. 3 and 10, 1831.
- 34.
Clarke 16.
- 35.
Cowell 10; Clarke 16.
- 36.
Euterpeiad, Oct. 1, 1831; NYA, Sept. 22, 1831; NYM, Oct. 8, 1831; Daily National Journal, Oct. 13, 1831.
- 37.
Trollope 162; NYS, Apr. 2, 1834.
- 38.
George G. Foster . New York Naked. New York: De Witt & Davenport, 185—, 145. For a thorough examination of New York prostitution in the 1830s, particularly in theatres, see Claudia Johnson. “That Guilty Third Tier,” Victorian America. Geoffrey Blodgett et al, eds., 111–120. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976; Gilfoyle; Hill; Susan Branson. Dangerous to Know: Women, Crime, and Notoriety in the Early Republic. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008; Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz. Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Knopf, 2002; Larry H. Whiteaker. Seduction, Prostitution and Moral Reform in New York, 1830–1860. New York: Garland Publ., 1997; Rebecca Yamin. “Wealthy, Free, and Female: Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century New York,” Historical Archaeology, Vol. 39, No. 1, Sin City (2005), pp. 4–18.
- 39.
Foster , Slices, 120
- 40.
NYA, Oct. 7, 1831.
- 41.
Maud and Otis Skinner. One Man in His Time: the Adventures of H. Watkins, Strolling Player, 1845–1863, 84.
- 42.
NYA, Oct. 19, 1831; Euterpeiad, Nov. 1, 1831.
- 43.
Clarke 19.
- 44.
Euterpeiad, Nov. 1, 1831; NYCA, Nov. 11, 1831.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bogar, T.A. (2018). “We Girls Always Patronize the Bowery”. In: Thomas Hamblin and the Bowery Theatre. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68406-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68406-2_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68405-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68406-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)