Existing comment:
Shakespeare Goes West
As Americans began to spread out from the East Coast, they took Shakespeare with them. An example of this migration is the copy of Shakespeare's Works seen here, published in Hartford, Connecticut in 1835. The inscription reads: "This volume left for California March 15th 1849 via the way of the plains and arrived home the 17th day May 1851." (1a & b)
West coast theatrical tours promised financial gain, which was not lost on the first great American acting family, the Booths. Junius Brutus Booth Jr. debuted in San Francisco in 1851. The following year he returned along with his father Junius Brutus Sr. and younger brother Edwin. Here an earlier photograph shows a young Edwin and his father. (2) The promptbook of Junius Brutus Booth, Jr. with his signature indicates that he played King John in San Francisco in 1857. (3)
Performances of well-known speeches and readings from the plays were also popular. Actor James Edward Murdoch took his volume of notes and readings from Hamlet on the road as a kind of nineteenth-century handmade teleprompter. (4 & 5) |