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The Great Codys.

Plymouth, England: Samuel Franklin Cody, [ca. 1896.] [Theophilus] Creber, lithographer. Chromolithographic letterhead, 13.75” x 10.75”. Unused. CONDITION: Good, small chips to lower-left corner and lower-left margin, short tears to upper-left edge, small chip to lower edge.

A scarce example of the colorful letterhead for “the Great Codys,” a Wild West show put on by sharpshooter, actor, and the first British aviator Samuel Franklin Cody.

Consisting of a tableaux of ten vignettes, this letterhead depicts the show’s cast and illustrates a number of their acts. Consisting of Samuel Franklin Cody (also known as Samuel Franklin Cowdery), Elizabeth Mary King, and her son “Little” Vivian, the troupe captured the imagination of British audiences through sharp-shooting, horseback riding, lassoing, and otherwise reenacting the excitement of the Wild West. Here, Cody’s troupe can be seen “rapid firing with both hands,” “shooting objects out of the mouth,” “winning the championship,” and “scoring the double bull’s eye.” Although a child, Little Vivian was evidently a good enough marksman to shoot “swinging balls.” 

“The Great Codys” was one of the several Wild West shows organized by S. F. Cody (1867–1913). Hailing from Iowa, by the time he was fourteen Cody had moved to “Montana and was breaking in horses, proving talented at handling even the most difficult animals” (“The Samuel Franklin Cody papers”). By 1888 he had joined Adam Forepaugh’s Circus and Wild West show, later touring with Annie Oakley’s shooting gallery, and by 1890, he had changed his last name from Cowdery to Cody and began a solo act titled “Captain Cody, King of the Cowboys,” where he demonstrated “his skills as a marksman and cowboy” (“Cody papers”). He then met and married Maud Maria Lee, and after teaching her how to shoot, the two became partners and sailed for England. Once across the Atlantic, they billed themselves as “Captain Cody and Miss Cody: Buffalo Bill’s Son and Daughter,” for which they were sued by Buffalo Bill. By this time, the Codys had met Elizabeth Mary King, “later known as Lela Marie Cody. Maud taught…Lela’s younger children, Vivian and Leon, how to shoot, but shortly after, Maud returned to the United States alone. Cody replaced her with Lela, both onstage and as a companion, although the marriage between Cody and Maud was never legally dissolved” (“Cody papers”). The newly formed troupe toured Europe throughout the 1890s, and spent much time in France where the horse-riding Samuel Cody challenged notable bicyclists to race and emerged victorious. The “Great Codys” returned to England by 1897, and would go on to stage a number of Wild West melodramas, their most notable being “The Klondyke Nugget.”

While Samuel Cody was a career showman, by 1900, he had developed a passion for flying and designing kites, and eventually grew interested in creating kites for human flight. By 1904, Cody had designed a kite which he used to tow a boat across the English Channel, which subsequently attracted the interest of the British Army, and led to Cody’s becoming “the Army’s Chief Instructor in Kiting at the Balloon School in Adershot” by 1906 (“Cody papers”). Then in 1907, Cody “developed a practical man-lifting kite that could ride in winds up to sixty miles per hour and take a man 1,000 feet up” (Williams). After helping to design the first dirigible in England, in 1908 “he designed and built a large aircraft of wood, metal, fabric, and a fifty-horsepower French engine…Cody flew it a quarter mile in what is recognized as the first powered sustained flight in Britain. Cody is to England what the Wright brothers are to the United States” (Williams). He would go on to build a biplane, monoplane, and seaplane. On “August 7, 1913, a plane he was test flying broke up in midair and crashed” (“Cody papers”), killing Cody instantly.

REFERENCES: “The Samuel Franklin Cody papers, 1888-1913 (bulk 1890-1905)” at Autry Museum Online; Kuntz, Jerry. A Pair of Shootists: the Wild West story of S.F. Cody and Maud Lee. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press (2010), p. 68; Williams, Carole E., Richard S. Robertson. “Cody, Samuel Franklin (1867–1913)” at Texas State Historical Association online.

Item #9008

Price: $650.00

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