A wonderful illustrated broadside promoting three appearances of twenty-six-inch tall Dollie Dutton in Meriden, Connecticut, and including five stanzas of verse addressed to her by the editor of a Maine newspaper. Dollie Dutton is shown here standing gracefully on her father’s hand, a pose that, dramatically highlighting her dainty stature.....
A scarce broadside advertising a performance by a noted American humorist and author, “Mr. Burnett…the only living man that can, at the same time, laugh on one side of his face, and cry upon the other!” Mr. Alfred (so-called Alf) Burnett was known as a “fine elocutionist” whose “changes of.....
A rare broadsheet promoting the Whirlpool Rapids near Niagara Falls, marketed as an accessible stop by way of the “Buttery Elevator,” including anecdotes and illustrations relating to several famous attempts to traverse the deadly waters. The first Buttery Elevator, named after entrepreneur John M. Buttery, opened in 1869 on the.....
This attractive folding brochure features evocative illustrations of the Historic Deadwood Days of ‘76 festival, including “Sioux Indian Battles and War Dances Every Day,” a covered wagon train, Paris Williams,”the most ensational Woman Rodeo Performer in America.” One image shows President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge taken into the Sioux Tribe.....
An apparently unrecorded illustrated broadside advertising a performance of the globe-trotting Knoxville College Quartet early in the blockbusting “race record” era. The historically-Black Knoxville College was founded a decade after the Civil War by the United Presbyterian Church “to provide the most thorough literary, classical and scientific training, together with.....
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.....
A rare broadsheet promoting a speaking engagement by Wild West storyteller “Captain Jack” Crawford, known as the “Poet Scout,” featuring numerous positive testimonials and advertising a Klondike Gold Rush investment opportunity. Held in Granville, New York, the one-man-show was to feature “two hours of rare enjoyment” with Crawford, including poetry.....
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.....
A rare and marvelously illustrated circular published for the New York exhibition of the first giraffes to set hoof in the United States, describing the animals’ physiques and life in the African savanna as well as the process of capturing, taming, and transporting them. Two giraffes—the only survivors in a......
An apparently unrecorded broadside for a lecture delivered by a Union veteran who avenged the killer of the first slain Union serviceman of the Civil War. In May 1861, private Frank E. Brownell of the 11th Fire Zouaves arrived in Alexandria, Virginia. After the commander of the regiment, Col. Elmer.....
A rare, jam-packed minstrel show playbill with blackface performances by Buckleys Serenaders in their Boston theater, brimming with ‘comic’ descriptions of three acts plus general information. Part I of this program includes melodies such as Darky Felicity and Farm Yard; Part II features variety acts such as the song and.....
A large illustrated circular promoting a Wild West show-cum-circus produced by Adam Forepaugh and held in Manchester, New Hampshire on July 28th, 1888. Adam Forepaugh (1831–1890) was one of the great circus organizers of 19th century America from immediately after the Civil War until his death in 1890. He is.....
A scarce circular advertising the “very best of border dramas”—based on the life of famed mountain man John Adams. Born in Medway, Massachusetts, “Grizzly Adams” (also known as James Capen Adams 1812–1860) spent his young adulthood capturing wild animals in New England for shows, but was forced to returned to.....
This entertaining program promotes the sixteenth season of Hoyt’s “A Texas Steer or Money Makes the Mare Go”—a humorous “collection of saws and incidents” about Texas politics. Act I takes place at “Maverick Brander’s” cattle ranch, while Act II and III are set at the Arlington hotel in Washington county.....
A handsome guide to the Eden Musée wax museum, concert hall, and amusement center in New York City. A vivid, theatrical illustration printed by lithographers Mayer, Merkel and Ottmann on the front wrapper depicts a military figure drawing back a curtain to reveal the stately, Second Empire-style museum building. The.....
A broadside advertising Mack & Arnold’s minstrel show at the Windsor, Vermont town hall, with an original ticket to the show. The public is advised that “this Troupe is not composed of one or two legitimate performers and several amateurs but that each and every member is an Etheopian Artist.....
An appropriately large and impressive broadside advertising a lecture by “Capt.” George Newton on whales and whaling, including an account of his 1880–82 tour of the U.S. with a putrefying whale carcass. Newton’s lecture was accompanied by magic lantern slides, as indicated by a note stating that “the calcium light brings.....
An unrecorded broadsheet promoting a satirical musical performance by the eccentric singer-songwriter Ossian E. Dodge, including a wood engraved portrait of Dodge, as well as a biographical note and phrenological “reading” of Dodge on the verso. For this engagement, Dodge was assisted by the poet and vocalist James G. Clark.....
The rare American edition of this fantastically-illustrated sheet music, inspired by the sensational arrival of the Egyptian hippopotamus Obaysch in London in 1850. A gift to Queen Elizabeth from Abbas Pasha, the Viceroy of Egypt, Obaysch made such a splash upon his arrival in England in the spring of 1850.....
An apparently unrecorded broadside for a run of performances of The Wizard of Oz at the Providence Opera House, produced four years after the publication of the book and two years after the first Wizard of Oz stage adaptation in New York. Fred R. Hamlin’s “princely production” of The Wizard.....