image: 23 3/4 in x 17 3/8 in; 60.325 cm x 44.1325 cm
Object Name:
chromolithograph
Object Type:
Chromolithograph
Place made:
United States: New York, New York City
Date made:
n.d.
Description:
This colored print is an oval bust portrait of actress Maggie Mitchell on a banner. She is wearing a white hat and white dress. The caption stamped at the top of the poster announces the location and date of the performance as “Park Theatre, Tuesday, March 14.”
The Park Theater was built in 1798 on Park Row in Manhattan and was New York City’s premiere performance space in the early 19th Century. It attracted a diverse audience with each class sitting in its preferred section. Working class men sat in the pit; members of the upper class and women in the boxes; the least affluent sat or stood in the balcony. These included immigrants, people of color, and prostitutes.
Maggie Mitchell (1832-1918) has been described as a pioneering example of "the personality actress," a performer whose onstage persona was almost indistinguishable from her image offstage. (<i> The History of North American Theater</i>). She was born Margaret Julia Mitchell in New York City. As a young girl, she performed in silent roles before making her speaking debut as Julia in <i> The Soldier's Daughter </i> in 1851. Petite and curly haired, with a childlike energy, she was often cast in sentimental comedies and in male or “tomboy” roles, including the title role in a stage adaptation of <i> Oliver Twist</i>. Mitchell's sprightly charm sparked what would later be called a "Maggie Mitchell craze" in Cleveland, Ohio, and she eventually became one of the most celebrated actresses of her era. She appeared in <i> Jane Eyre</i>, <i> Little Barefoot</i>, <i> The Pearl of Savoy</i>, and other dramas, but her best-known role was as a simple country girl in a comedy called <i> Fanchon, the Cricket</i>, adapted from George Sand's story "La Petite Fadette." She made her debut as Fanchon in the early 1860s and continued to perform the part, along with her trademark “shadow dance,” until she was in her fifties. Abraham Lincoln, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were said to be among her admirers. Maggie Mitchell retired from the theater in 1892.
This chromolithograph was produced by Henry Atwell Thomas. Henry Atwell Thomas (1834-1904) was an artist, portrait painter, and lithographer especially well known for his theatrical portraits. His New York firm was called H. A. Thomas Lith. Studio until 1887, when it became H. A. Thomas & Wylie Lithographic (sometimes cited as Lithography or Lithographing) Company.
The collection contains a duplicate of this same print (DL.60.3049)
