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Tonight! Vreeland & Middaugh’s New Orleans Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Specialty Company!…

New York: Carl Fisher, No. 4 Fourth Avenue, ca. 1875. Broadsheet, 13.675” x 5.25”. CONDITION: Good+, 3” tear at near top of right edge, 1” tear at middle-left edge, and .5” tear at lower margin.

A scarce playbill for a New York Uncle Tom’s Cabin company promoting a performance of the play itself, interspersed with several variety show acts.

An early, transitional form of the “Tom Show,” the performance of “this immortal drama” advertised here “introduc[es] Specialties between each act by recognized artists.” Relatively little space is devoted to the play (“The Best Uncle Tom! The Greatest Eva!” etc.), in favor of promoting the variety of entertainments in store: “THE BEST Dramatic People. Specialties. Vocalists. Dancers. Quartette. Band and Orchestra. Special Scenery.” Among the acts listed are a “Double Plantation Song and Dance and Clog,” an “Operatic Orchestra,” and two young performers, “The youngest and most artistic dancer” Miss Lizzie Mosher, and “The accomplished and charming comedienne, vocalist and dancer” Miss Bessie Templeton. Evidently due to their “New Orleans Silver Cornet Band”—which put on a “Grand Noonday Street Parade”—Vreeland & Middaugh’s troupe billed themselves as a “New Orleans Uncle Tom’s Cabin And Specialty Company.” The scenery is proudly stated to be painted by “Sooman & Landis,” i.e., Joseph Sosman and Perry Landis, founders of a prolific and successful Chicago-based scenery painting firm. Among the performers listed are three Middaughs (Charlie, T. D., and LaRue) and a C. W. Vreeland.

The proprietors of the troupe, T. D. Middaugh and C. W. Vreeland, hailed from Friendship, a hamlet in western New York, and the company seems to have performed for a brief period from 1889 to 1890 across New York State, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio. We find both Vreeland and Middaugh active in minstrel performances both before and after their brief partnership.

OCLC records just three holdings, at Yale, University of Virginia, and Middle Tennessee State University. We locate a fourth at Bowdoin College.

A rare broadsheet advertising a performance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, blending the play itself with the kinds of variety performances that would make up the next generation of “Tom Shows.”

REFERENCES: “Vreeland & Middaugh’s, c. 1890” at Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture (University of Virginia) online.

Item #9797

On Hold

Price: $475.00

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