Abstract
Medina helps Hamblin to quiet the fury over Missouri’s death by putting out the story that Missouri died from reading an inflammatory article in an underground “flash press” paper describing her unsavory background. Four months later, Medina as well dies unexpectedly. Hamblin becomes embroiled in the tempestuous marriage and subsequent divorce of actress Eliza Shaw, winning her for himself. She becomes the biggest star of the Bowery in melodrama, tragedy, and comedy. Managing a handsomely rebuilt Bowery Theatre, Hamblin cultivates new talent and stages an increasing number of lurid melodramas, notably Nick of the Woods and Ernest Maltravers. Hamblin’s latest protégés are Joseph Proctor, twenty-three, and Mary Ann Lee, sixteen, who will become America’s first ballerina.
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Notes
- 1.
New York Whig, June 18, 1838; New York Evangelist, June 23, 1838; Hudson River Chronicle, June 26, 1838; NYS in BS, June 26, 1838; Polyanthos Extra, n.d. (early July 1838).
- 2.
Medina to Wemyss, June 18, 1838, HTC; NYA, June 18, 1838.
- 3.
The Flash (New York), Oct. 31, 1841; Polyanthos, July 21, 1838; MCNYE, July 20, 1838.
- 4.
SotT, June 23, 1838.
- 5.
SotT, July 7, 1838.
- 6.
BS, July 9, 1838.
- 7.
NYH, Aug. 9, 1838; NYES, July 19, 1838; Ladies’ Companion, August 1838.
- 8.
NYH, Oct. 16, 1838.
- 9.
Houmas, op. cit.; New York Commercial Advertiser, Nov. 14, 1838; Wallack 119–20.
- 10.
NYA, Nov. 13, 1838; NYEP, Nov. 14, 1838; PI, Nov. 15, 1838; Sunday Flash, Sept. 19 and Oct. 24, 1841.
- 11.
NYH, Jan. 16 and 25, 1839.
- 12.
BTRB, Folger; MCNYE, Jan. 17, 1839.
- 13.
SotT, Feb. 9, 1839.
- 14.
N-Y, Feb. 23, 1839.
- 15.
Ludlow, Dramatic Life, 506–7.
- 16.
Durang, Extra-illustrated Ireland, vol. 4: 131–32, HTC.
- 17.
Shaw v. Shaw, Chancery Court, Aug. 23, 1839, MACNY; Edward Shaw to F. C. Wemyss, Nov. 17, 1837, HTC.
- 18.
Knickerbocker Magazine, January 1838.
- 19.
New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 3, 1837.
- 20.
N-Y, Apr. 1, 1839.
- 21.
Some accounts, likely puffery, state a capacity of 3500.
- 22.
N-Y, June 29 and July 20, 1839.
- 23.
Knickerbocker Magazine, October 1837 and December 1839.
- 24.
SotT, May 18, 1839.
- 25.
SotT, May 4, 11 and 18, 1839.
- 26.
Ladies’ Companion, May 1839, 11:49; SotT, May 25, 1839; NYM, June 1, 1839.
- 27.
Haswell, 270–71; PI, Apr. 13, 1895. Many accounts of 1830s Bowery audiences erroneously describe them as composed of “b’hoys”, but the term did not appear in print until the close of the decade; hence, this work does not use the term “b’hoy” until now.
- 28.
Haswell 271–72; Century Illustrated Magazine, XLIII (Dec. 1891): 228; Brown, 284.
- 29.
Foster . Gaslight, 175–76.
- 30.
Meade Minnigerode. The Fabulous Forties. Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing Co., Inc., 1928, 174; PI, Apr. 13, 1895.
- 31.
Moore, Lillian. “Mary Ann Lee: First American Giselle,” Chronicles of the American Dance from the Shakers to Martha Graham, ed. Paul Magriel. New York: Da Capo Press, 1978, 103–17.
- 32.
Unidentified clipping, “New York Theaters—Bowery Theatre,” HTC; playbill, HTC; BS, June 25, 1839.
- 33.
N-Y, Aug. 3, 1839; MCNYE, July 25 and Aug. 12, 1839.
- 34.
Shaw v. Shaw, Chancery Court, Aug. 23, 1839, MACNY.
- 35.
Ibid., Sept. 16, 1839.
- 36.
NYH, Aug. 30, 1839.
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
NYM, Oct. 5, 1839.
- 39.
The Washington DC Daily National Intelligencer on August 5, 1839, reported that Medina had left Giafar unfinished at the time of her death; if so, it is unclear who completed it for Hamblin (perhaps Phillips).
- 40.
NYH, Aug. 24, 1839.
- 41.
Odell IV: 364. Some sources erroneously cite Black Schooner as being Medina’s , which was chronologically impossible. Portions of her work on a similar nautical melodrama may have been incorporated by whoever penned this new work.
- 42.
TSH to F. C. Wemyss, Sept. 4, 1839, in Extra-Illustrated Ireland, Vol. I, Pt IX, faces p. 148, HTC.
- 43.
Hone I : 421–22; NYM, Sept. 28, 1839.
- 44.
William Knight Northall . Before and Behind the Curtain. New York: W. F. Burgess, 1851, 152–54.
- 45.
NYM, Mar. 7, 1840; Northall, 153; Benson J. Lossing, History of New York City. New York: G. E. Perine, 1884, 430; Northall 153–55.
- 46.
NYM, Nov. 30, 1839; MCNYE, Nov. 14, 1839 and Sept. 2, 1840.
- 47.
Clipper, May 23, 1868.
- 48.
NYH, Nov. 25, 1839.
- 49.
Clipper, Nov. 10, 1883.
- 50.
Hamblin held a February 13 benefit of Love for the local Fire Department.
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Bogar, T.A. (2018). “The Public Have Only Themselves to Blame for the Reign of Melodrama”. 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_9
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